Cisco 9124e Blade Switch in C7000 BladeSystem - NPIV issues

[Lyndon Handy]

We are having severe problems integrating Cisco 9124e blade switch with Cisco MDS 9513 core switches. HP Blades and all switches are all new, NPIV issues as follows:
- Cisco Fabric Manager nameserver does not list the WWPN's of each of the blade HBA's
- In fabric manager, the 9124e icon shows a RED "\" line across it, indicating an error.
- 9124e is in NPV mode, 24 ports licensed. 9513 has npiv enabled.
- each 9124 shows an error "Invalid Auth Password or Wrong Digent(Server, Client)
- Problem is consistent across all 9124e's, "hosts" tab in FM is empty!

WWPN's of blades are not visible in FM. We had to manually enter wwpn's into zones using Cisco CLI.

Q: Is there a configuration step that has been missed? Any special port settings on the 9513 side for the uplinks?
What is the "\" error with the 9124e' mean?
9124e have BOTH NPV and NPIV enabled? Should NPV be enabled only (and not NPIV)?

Perhaps a few pointers or a step by step guide will help. 9124e setup document doesn't help, too generic.
TIA!

[IBaltay]

Hi,
Some usefull info could be found in the HP SAN design referrence guide page:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DocumentIndex.jsp?contentType=SupportManual&locale=en_US&docIndexId=179911&taskId=101&prodTypeId=12169&prodSeriesId=406734

or this HP c-class SAN switches link:
ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/products/storageworks/san/HP_BladeSystem_c-class_073008_update.pdf

[Bharath_Pingali · Accepted solution]

Hello,

I had seen a similar kind of issue while setting up.

Few tips that might help;
1. Putting a 9124e NPV mode will disable all the ports by default, you have click on each port and enable it.
2. The server running FM and 9124e should be on the same network
3. Enable NPIV on your core switch
4. the passwords on each switch might be different if you are seeing "Invalid Auth Password or Wrong Digent"
5. You may have to create a vsan on 9124e and put all ports into it

Just to keep it clean I would enable NPV on 9124e.

The above steps solved my problem.

Hope this helps.

-Bharath

[Lyndon Handy]

Problem solved, summary below. Thanks to those who contributed.

â ¢ Core Switch: 9513 with NPIV enabled
â ¢ Switch also requires that the ISL ports be F-Ports (on the core)
â ¢his can be set before or after the ISLs are connected.
â ¢ Ensure no active fabric/VSAN config exists on the 9124 Edge switches
â ¢ Once the fiber is run and has an IP address, make the admin password the same as the FM Server admin password that was used to authenticate with the 9513 core
â ¢ Enable NPV option on all edge switches, this will more than likely put the ISL links into N_Port status. The ports will be administratively down. They can be â Uppedâ and the Links will come online.
â ¢ Confirm the VSAN ID that will be used is identical across all switches and include the EXT ports as well as all the F ports from the edge switches.
â ¢ From the core, include all ports that have the ISLs from the edge switches and also has the storage-facing ports.
Once done the Initiators will sign into the fabric and populate the name server to perform zoning