HP 10G 554FLR freebsd driver

[ServerPains]

It's a real shame I cannot use the 10G NICs on these sl230s blades and everyone I've asked says there are no drivers anywhere to be found.

Does anyone know where I can find drivers or confirm that these cannot be used on these blades?
Or, is there another model of 10G that can work on these? I have a free PCIe slot too.

[Suman_1978]

Hi,

If you are referring to FlexFabric 10Gb 2-port 554FLR-SFP+ Adapter, its compatible with ProLiant SL230s Gen8.
Here are the drivers for this card.

Thank You!
I work with HPE but opinions expressed here are mine.
Recent Support Video Releases

[ServerPains]

Hi,

Yes, that's the card but even in the list you show me, I don't see any drivers for bsd (freebsd 13).

Is there a driver there that works and it just doesn't say bsd?

HP FLEXFABRIC 10GB 2-PORT 554FLR-SFP+ ADAPTER CARD 634026-001 629140-001

[Suman_1978]

Hi,

FreeBSD is not officially supported,
You can install but It may or may not work properly.

Few reference document:
https://techlibrary.hpe.com/us/en/enterprise/servers/supportmatrix/index.aspx
https://www.hpe.com/jp/ja/servers/bsd.html
https://people.freebsd.org/~jcagle/

Thank You!
I work with HPE but opinions expressed here are mine.
Recent Support Video Releases

[ServerPains]

It's a production environment so I really cannot play with it. I need something reliable right from the start.

I guess I'll have to swp out the adapters for PCIe cards then.

Thanks very much for your help.

[ServerPains]

It was n fact pretty simple to enable.

To enable the Emulex 10G cards on freebsd;
Add into /boot/loader.conf
if_oce_load="YES" (or what ever your card is)

To enable the interface for DHCP, add in rc.conf for which ever NIC you want;

ifconfig_oce0="DHCP"
#ifconfig_igb0="DHCP"

# /etc/netstart # To restart network

Seems to work fine but I'll test since you mention it's not officially supported and may not behave correctly.

[Suman_1978]

Hello @ServerPains 

Let me know if you were able to resolve the issue.

If you have no further query and you are satisfied with the answer then kindly mark the topic as Solved so that it is helpful for all community members.

Thankyou
Suman

[ServerPains]

The driver seems to work fine but you have me nervous with your comment that it may not work properly.

What does that mean specifically? How would I know if it's ok to put into production?

[Suman_1978]

Hi,

I understand your concern.
Here is the link to check HPE Servers Support & Certification Matrices.
Here we can know HPE matrices of servers and supported operating systems and virtualization software versions.
As per this, freebsd is not listed as supported.

Thank You!
I work with HPE but opinions expressed here are mine.
Recent Support Video Releases

[ServerPains]

So the fact that the driver works and gives a solid 900Mbps+ doesn't mean anything?
It means it could fail any time or just that it wasn't completely tested to be certified by HP?

I'm trying to understand why someone would build a driver and not bother to make sure it's usable?

[gracz]

Hello,

may I ask which driver was working for you? I try to find a solution to use a HP FlexFabric 10Gb 2-port 554FLB Adapter with FreeBSD 13.1 without any success so far. 

Thank you in advance.

[ServerPains]

Hate to sound like many forum trolls do but did you read the entire thread? The answer is on page one.
I hared it.

[gracz]

Yes, I've read all of the previous comments. Tried to enable the NIC as you suggested, but I still get POST failed in dmesg. I thought that maybe I need a driver, however I can only find the ones for RHEL and Suse. I guess I'll just change this card, I only asked because you mentioned that a similar setup is working for you. Thanks for the reply anyways. 

[ServerPains]

In my case, the driver was likely added by the installer when I first installed the OS. It's just not santioned or officially supported so it's not enabled.

[pchops]

---

@gracz wrote:

Yes, I've read all of the previous comments. Tried to enable the NIC as you suggested, but I still get POST failed in dmesg. I thought that maybe I need a driver, however I can only find the ones for RHEL and Suse. 

---

FreeBSD 13.1 includes a driver that "works" with this card (if_oce.ko), but as previously mentioned, it is not supported by HPE.

Can you post the related "POST failed" output from dmesg?

[ServerPains]

I simply added this into the /etc/rc.conf and rebooted and the interface came up. It's been fully reliable so far.

In rc.conf;

ifconfig_oce0="DHCP"

[gracz]

I've added ifconfig_oce0="DHCP" to rc.conf, though I have a different type NIC: HP FlexFabric 10Gb 2-port 554FLB. It uses Emulex BE3 network processor which should work and it is listed as supported HW for FreeBSD.

This is the relevant piece from dmesg:

[ServerPains]

I don't know what that error is but did you use the correct interface name? I just shared mine, yours may be different.

[pchops]

@gracz -- What is the interconnect option that connects to the 554FLB? If it is not a Virtual Connect, would it happen to be a model that support 1Gb operation? Also, what firmware version is currently installed on the 554FLB?

[gracz]

Thank you for the answer. I tried to check the firmware version in iLO but it's unknown. I do not know if this is related to the OS or not.. This card has 2*10G and ports are connected to Catalyst switches. 

[pchops · Accepted solution]

---

@gracz wrote:

Thank you for the answer. I tried to check the firmware version in iLO but it's unknown. I do not know if this is related to the OS or not.. This card has 2*10G and ports are connected to Catalyst switches. 

---

@gracz -- When you say "ports are connected to Catalyst switches", do you mean the blade enclosure interconnects are Cisco Catalyst blade switches, ie: 3020, 3120G, or 3120X? The reason I ask is that there is a known problem with the 554FLB (and 554M) and blade switches that support 1Gb (even if they also support 10Gb). When you encounter this particular issue, the symptoms are usually that the NIC will fail to properly initialize during POST. For example, a proper POST should show something like this (BTW, you can get also see the firmware version during POST):

However, if it fails to initialize properly, you will see the Emulex banner, but you won't see the "Controller Status:" output, ie:

If you enter RBSU, you will see more than the expected number of devices -- for example, the expected number of devices (4 -- 2x NIC and 2x iSCSI or FCoE functions) in the "PCI IRQ Settings" section would normally look like this:

However, when the device does not properly initialize, you will see twice that number, ie:

In your dmesg output, it shows more than the expected number of devices and I'm able to reproduce the error on my BL460c Gen8 blade with a 554FLB when using Cisco 3020 blade switch, ie:

If you are using a Cisco blade switch that supports 1Gb operation, one way to verify that you are having the same problem as this known issue is to temporarily shutdown the port(s) on the Cisco blade switch, then reset the blade and see if the 554FLB properly initializes. For example, on my system, if I shutdown the switch port connected to the 554FLB, reset the blade, boot the FreeBSD installer, and then re-enable the switch port, it will properly load the driver, ie:

[gracz]

@pchops One word: Awesome! Thank you so much for replicating and resolving this issue and providing a detailed explanation. Port shutdown and blade reset has solved this problem. Yes, it's a 3020 blade switch and firmware on the NIC is 11.1.183.23.

I've also tried to reboot the blade after the fix. This time there was no issue with loading the driver. Network connectivity is  working now.

Thank you again, have a great day!