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Re: ESXi 5.1 on Gen8 blade not seeing HW iSCSI from the 554flb NIC

 
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Bob_Vance
Esteemed Contributor

ESXi 5.1 on Gen8 blade not seeing HW iSCSI from the 554flb NIC

~~~~~~~~~
C3000
Procurves 6120XG in bays1&3
Bl460c Gen8 blades (four of them)
... 554flb LOM
... also Flex Fabric 2-port Mezz2 card
..... (but no Interconnect in bay4)
P2000i iSCSI SAN G3
~~~~~~~~~

I used HP's ISO for ESXi 5.1.

I successfully configured and am using a Software iSCSI adapter, through which all blades are seeing and using the P2000 target LUNs for shared datastores.


But, now, I want to use the Hardware iSCSI adapter function of the FlexFabric NICs.

For one of the blades, I unmapped the iSCSI LUNs, deleted the SW iSCSI adapter and rebooted the blade.


I stopped the POST in the iSCSI setup utility.

I configured the initiators for the 3 active NICs (remember we only have bay2&3 interconnects), using different IPs than had been used for SW iSCSI initiator. Then successfully discovered the LUNs from the P2000 target IP.


SO, the HW adapter sees the LUNs and display sizes correctly.


BUT......
when ESXi 5,1 comes up, it does not display any HW iSCSI adapter - only the built-in local-drive SmartArray.


What am I missing?
Is the 554flb supported in ESXi 5.1 for this.
Do I need a license?
A new driver ?

 


tks
bv

 

"The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne." - Chaucer
7 REPLIES 7
Hongjun Ma
Trusted Contributor
Solution

Re: ESXi 5.1 on Gen8 blade not seeing HW iSCSI from the 554flb NIC

Please take a look at this pdf Page 12.

 

http://vibsdepot.hp.com/hpq/recipes/September2012VMwareRecipe2.0.pdf

 

you can see there is NO iscsi driver for Emulex card in HP 5.1 image.

 

The same info can be found here

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/software/vmware-esxi/driver_version.html

 

you can see in 5.1 custom built image, you don't have component of "scsi-be2iscsi" driver.

 

 

My understanding is that there were some iSCSI driver issue with 5.1 so HP didn't release it and are working on get it fixed around Oct. I'll let you know if I know more info.

 

BTW, you should  bookmark the top link web site address and bottom URL. It always shows you what's the latest component inside HP vmware image.

 

My VC blog: http://hongjunma.wordpress.com



Hongjun Ma
Trusted Contributor

Re: ESXi 5.1 on Gen8 blade not seeing HW iSCSI from the 554flb NIC

Just got the latest update. Emulex has fixed the issue and the new driver will be in a new custom ESXi image coming out aruond the end of this month(10/2012).

My VC blog: http://hongjunma.wordpress.com



Bob_Vance
Esteemed Contributor

Re: ESXi 5.1 on Gen8 blade not seeing HW iSCSI from the 554flb NIC

Thanks, Hongjun

I was coming to that conclusion, myself.


The HW iSCSI is defintely seen by the PCI code in kernel:


esxist8 ## lspci | grep -i -e net -e iscsi
.
... 00:04:00.0 Network controller: Emulex Corporation HP FlexFabric 10Gb 2-port 554FLB Adapter [vmnic0]
... 00:04:00.1 Network controller: Emulex Corporation HP FlexFabric 10Gb 2-port 554FLB Adapter [vmnic1]
... 00:04:00.2 Mass storage controller: Emulex Corporation OneConnect 10Gb iSCSI Initiator (be3)
.
... 00:04:00.3 Mass storage controller: Emulex Corporation OneConnect 10Gb iSCSI Initiator (be3)
... 00:21:00.0 Network controller: Emulex Corporation NC555m 10Gb 2-port FlexFabric Network Adapter [vmnic2]
... 00:21:00.1 Network controller: Emulex Corporation NC555m 10Gb 2-port FlexFabric Network Adapter [vmnic3]
... 00:21:00.2 Mass storage controller: Emulex Corporation OneConnect 10Gb iSCSI Initiator (be3)
... 00:21:00.3 Mass storage controller: Emulex Corporation OneConnect 10Gb iSCSI Initiator (be3)


So, we definitely see the storage controller portion of the NIC.


But, looking for drivers:
.
esxist7 ## ls /usr/lib/vmware/vmkmod/|grep -i -e net -e ^be -e ... iscsi
... be2net
... iscsi_linux_92
... iscsi_linux_9_2_0_0
... iscsi_trans
... iscsi_vmk
... netsched
... usbnet
... vmkapi_v2_0_0_0_iscsi_shim
... vmw_vaaip_netapp
... vmxnet3
.
we don't see a be2iscsi or whatever it is now.


Then on the Vmware page, they have new drivers for the card for 5.0/5.1
""
VMware View > Drivers & Tools > VMware ESXi 5.0/5.1 Driver CD for Emulex OneConnect OCe10102 10GbE Adapter (Network Function)
"""
but *only* the network function.


So, thanks for confirming that and saving me more research time.


((((
BTW, I have bookmarked your blog page ;>)
))))


tks
bv

"The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne." - Chaucer
Bob_Vance
Esteemed Contributor

Re: ESXi 5.1 on Gen8 blade not seeing HW iSCSI from the 554flb NIC

I will set a reminder to keep checking the site for updated driver.

 

 

And thanks also for those 2 great links.

 

 

tks

bv

"The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne." - Chaucer
Bob_Vance
Esteemed Contributor

Re: ESXi 5.1 on Gen8 blade not seeing HW iSCSI from the 554flb NIC

Hmmmm.

I just noticed on the HP vmware versions page that the 5.1 drivers do *not* show be2net !?!?!


The 5.0.1 does list *both* be2net & be2iscsi.


We are definitely running the 5.1 build 799733:


esxist7 ## vmware -v
... VMware ESXi 5.1.0 build-799733

 

and, of course, we *do* have a be2net driver:


esxist7 ## ethtool -i vmnic3
... driver: be2net
... version: 4.1.255.11
... firmware-version: 4.1.450.7
... bus-info: 0000:21:00.1


**BUT**,
its version,
... 4.1.255.11
is *earlier* than the 5.0.1 version,
... 4.1.334.0-1
!?!?


Any thoughts?

 

tks
bv

"The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne." - Chaucer
Bob_Vance
Esteemed Contributor

Re: ESXi 5.1 on Gen8 blade not seeing HW iSCSI from the 554flb NIC

I fell back to ESXi 5.0.1, which has the be2iscsi driver, and the HW iSCSI worked fine, presenting 4 iSCSI HBAs in the Vsphere GUI.  All LUNs were there and the existing VMFS Datastores were discovered with no problem.

 

So, I'll be looking for the be2iscsi update for ESXi 5.1

 

 

tks

bv

"The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne." - Chaucer
Hongjun Ma
Trusted Contributor

Re: ESXi 5.1 on Gen8 blade not seeing HW iSCSI from the 554flb NIC

I know it's confusing. As a HP employee, I hate to let customers to figure out all these by themselves without any obvious documentation.

 

I recall that there are some driver issues working with latest 5.1 so actually built-in Vmware vanilla image uses an older Emulex be2net version.

 

You can see the same info at the PDF recipe page 12. The format in the table is kind of confusing to me but you get an idea that 5.1 version is indeed using Vmware built-in old Emulex driver and HP didn't apply any newer driver on it.

 

Hopefully the image at the end of Oct will resolve all this mess.

 

For iSCSI issue, this is release notes for HP custom image, look at the last page. I just wish they can put every documentation at one place without letting users to search around.

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c03469594.pdf

My VC blog: http://hongjunma.wordpress.com