Issues with the Nics on HP Blade Servers G7

[samuk]

HI,

I have now done 3 implemtations of VMware standard on a HP BL460c G7 Servers, and have had identical issues on all servers.

I configured the Managment Network to Use VMnic 0 and VMnic 1 - one is active the other standby.

when pulling the wire out to test the failover - the standby card doesn not become active and the interface status does not update in the Client.

See atatched for card details

[aravinds3107]

What is the vSwitch Policy?

And do yo have etherchannel in place on physical network (http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100404...)

[a_p_]

when pulling the wire out to test the failover ...

Which wire did you pull? The uplink on the back of the interconnect module (switch)? This does not trigger any failover, because the downlink port to the blade is still up. What I recommend in case of blade switches - assuming the physical switch supports it - is to configure a "Link State Tracking" group where all the downlinks of the group go down if the uplink fails.

André

[samuk]

Vswitch policy is Route Based on the originating virtual Port ID - see attached

I pullued the cable out from the back of the pass through module for vmnic0 - this causes the link to go down. (pass through module)

When i configure the managment network to use vmnic 6 & vmnic 7 (quadport network card) removing the cable failover fine..

i foudn this on all 3 servers that i have configured..

[kjb007]

Are you using virtual connect?  Make sure you have smartlink enabled, otherwise the downlink NICs never know they get disconnected, and thus no failover.

-KjB

[samuk]

Not using a virtual Connect..

We are having the same issue with te G7 server \ ESX 4 update 2.

Onbard nics are not failing over..if i configure the quad port nics they fail oer fine..

[a_p_]

Which firmware do you currently use (OA/pass-trough modules)?

I'm not sure whether this applies to your issue, but there was an issue with the pass-trough modules where an incorrect link state was indicated for certain NIC models.

see http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c02473928&lang=en&cc=us&taskI...

The Advisory lists the OA and pass-trough firmware on which the issue was first resolved.

André

[samuk]

will cehck that...i didtnt think the pass throughs had fimrware..?

i changed the Network failover Detection to Beacon Probing - now its falling over to the standby..but the nics not comming up as failed in the client with a X...

[a_p_]

... .i didtnt think the pass throughs had fimrware..?

I wasn't aware of that either, but I had to learn it when a client ran into exactly this issue.

André

[Vannus]

With HP blade centers EVERYTHING has firmware.

When HP released the G7's they switched to EMULEX for their onboard NIC's, there have been several driver and firmware releases to fix various problems, so make sure you have the correct Firmware/ESXi driver for the blade. you can find the supported versions on the VMware compatibility matrix.

You may have to update the ESXi drivers even if you are using the HP OEM build image.

We had a recent install with these blades (with virtual connect to complicate things further) and the Firmware and drivers caused us no end of problems.

[samuk]

Where do i find the ESXi drivers - never installed these before..

thanks

[JASA1976]

You need to go to the HP Support & Drivers web pages and search for the model of blade that you are using. Select ESXi5.0 as the operating system and the drivers should be available to download. They come with a pdf for how to install.

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/support-drivers.html

[Vannus]

Compare the versions both at the HP download site and the VMware download site.

http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/datacenter_cloud_infrastructure/vmware_vsphere/5_0#drivers_tools

I have had more success in general getting the drivers from VMware.

The versions specified on the VMware compatibility matrix will be the ones from the VMware site rather than the HP one.

Firmware for the blades will always be from the HP site.

[samuk]

got this issue logged with VMware support -

they say 3 drivers are avaible fo Emulax cards.. and i have to check with HP what Device ID the nics are?? or i can try the bottom two drivers to see which one works¬!

Initially the guy said i need to rebuild the server - as there is no way of finding out what version i have installed..

then i caled back and he said i can update without rebuilding...???!!

http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/vcl/result.php?search=nc553i&searchCategory=all

[Vannus]

there are 3 drivers involved here, one is Ethernet (be2net), one is hardware iSCSI (be2iscsi) and one is FCoE (lpfc820).

there is an advisory from HP here reguarding firmware and compatibility

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c03005737

What type of I/O modules do you have in the chassis bays 1 and 2?

are you planning to use hardware iSCSI or FCoE?

[Vannus]

BTW, if you do "ethtool -i vmnic0" from the command line, it will show you both the currently installed driver version and the firmware virsion of the nic.

[Vannus]

Ok you need to ensure you have the firmware version - 4.0.360.15.  this is available from the HP support site for the Blade server.

For the Ethernet Driver you need driver version - 4.0.335.1. this is from the VMWare download site.