Emulex lpfc message with g7 blade and VirtualConnect

[Ulf Zimmermann]

I got several BL460c g7 blades connected to a Virtual Connect FlexFabric, which connects to StorageWorks 8/8 switch, which connects to a 3Par F200. On all blades I see messages like:

lpfc 0000:02:00.2: 0:(0):0115 Unknown ELS command xf received from NPORT x11700
lpfc 0000:02:00.3: 1:(0):0115 Unknown ELS command xf received from NPORT x21700
lpfc 0000:02:00.2: 0:(0):0115 Unknown ELS command xf received from NPORT x11500
lpfc 0000:02:00.3: 1:(0):0115 Unknown ELS command xf received from NPORT x21500
lpfc 0000:02:00.2: 0:(0):0115 Unknown ELS command xf received from NPORT x11700
lpfc 0000:02:00.3: 1:(0):0115 Unknown ELS command xf received from NPORT x21700
lpfc 0000:02:00.2: 0:(0):0115 Unknown ELS command xf received from NPORT x11500
lpfc 0000:02:00.3: 1:(0):0115 Unknown ELS command xf received from NPORT x21500

Can anyone enlighten me about the cause for these messages? Cause for concern?

P.S. This thread has been moved from HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage to HP BladeSystem Virtual Connect. - Hp Forum Moderator

[Johan Guldmyr]

Hey, you're not running some kind of monitoring tool that sends out fcpings are you? fcping uses ELS anyway. Might be the reason but I don't know exactly what this 'xf' is supposed to mean.

Maybe it refers to the 'XF_port' that is used for FCoCEE (at least google says so)?

Is something like that enabled - or being used?

Do you see that on blades that are not zoned in to the 3PAR F200?

[Ulf Zimmermann]

I got one blade without OS right now, so I could later check. No monitoring that I know off, unless the Fabric OS 6.3.2b on the 8/8 is doing something.

[Ulf Zimmermann]

And I think I saw those messages on the blades before zoning was in place, but can't say for sure right now.

[Johan Guldmyr]

As far as I know the 8/8 shouldn't be doing stuff like that from scratch.

Unless you are using DCFM, toptalkers or fabric watch or something like that.

On the flexfabric - is the FCoCEE disabled (as I guess you're just using the pure fibre channel)? I have not worked with the vc flexfabrics so don't know how it's supposed to be set up or how to do it.

[Ulf Zimmermann]

One more thing, right now these blades run with the default RHEL 5.5 lpfc driver, as the newer P one is not on the approved 3Par list so far.

[Johan Guldmyr]

ohhh, yeah that might very much be it.
Firmware also maybe?

How often are you seeing these entries?
Maybe it's not the end of the world if they don't come too often or causes any problems.

[Johan Guldmyr]

And if you have one blade that is without an OS - maybe it would be an idea to put another driver on the emulex card - even if it's not supported?

[Ulf Zimmermann]

Don't see anything about FCoCEE inside of Virtual Connect Domain Manager. And I just checked the logs of our four ESXi hosts, they also show the same "Unknown ELS command xf received" messages in the syslog server.

[Ulf Zimmermann]

On the ESXi log I am looking at right now, I got entries at:

0:15:51:01.924, 0:15:51:02.023, 0:16:11:09.727, 0:16:11:09.826, 0:16:31:17.533, 0:16:31:17.636, 0:16:50:33.073

So looks like every 20 seconds two messages.