I got the original hardware back. After new round of testing on this hardware (with both Intel and HGST NVMe devices)
Kernel 4.4.0-62-generic commit: 7392f29e5ee5cb8509f20e5ce6cc1e360c486c91 exhibits the issue and kernel fails to boot up. Ignore my earlier result with the same kernel. This is the commit id we have to focus on. Here is a complete list of all the kernels requested for testing in this bug. 4.4.0-59-generic: * Boot up passed * NVMe devices listed in both lspci and "nvme list" commands 4.4.70-040470-generic Mainline * Boot up passed * NVMe devices listed in both lspci and "nvme list" commands 4.4.41-040441-generic: * Boot up passed * NVMe devices listed in both lspci and "nvme list" commands 4.4.0-60-generic: * Boot up passed * NVMe devices NOT listed in both lspci and "nvme list" commands 4.4.0-61-generic: * Boot up passed * NVMe devices listed in both lspci and "nvme list" commands 4.4.0-62-generic commit: 7392f29e5ee5cb8509f20e5ce6cc1e360c486c91 * Boot up FAIL. Kernel does not boot. This is the original issue. Looks like this commit has the bug. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Kernel Packages, which is subscribed to linux in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1695780 Title: On VMware ESXi with PCI passthru enabled for Intel NVMe Ubuntu Xenial VM does not boot Status in linux package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Bug description: My set up is a Cisco UCS c240 server with an Intel NVMe 1.6TB drive running VMware ESXi version 6.0U2. NVMe device is made available as a PCI passthru device and not claimed by ESXi kernel. This NVMe device when added to a Ubuntu 16.04.2 running kernel version 4.4.0-62 and above does not boot, kernel does not boot fully and hangs for while before the VM powers off. However, running kernel versions 4.4.0-43, 4.4.0-53, 4.4.0-57, and 4.4.0-59 everything works as expected. Earlier versions of the kernel also do not work. Here is a short list of the I tested with 4.4.0-31 -> kernel panic (different issue) 4.4.0-43 -> works 4.4.0-53 -> works 4.4.0-57 -> works 4.4.0-59 -> works 4.4.0-62 -> fail 4.4.0-64 -> fail 4.4.0-75 -> fail 4.4.0-77 -> fail 4.8.0-51 -> fail ~# cat /proc/version_signature Ubuntu 4.4.0-75.96-generic 4.4.59 To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1695780/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kernel-packages Post to : kernel-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kernel-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp