HBAs not seen by ESXi Host for Storage - HELP PLEASE!!!

[GogglesP]

I have installed a ESXi 4.1 host with a one NIC mgmt network and two Qlogic 8g HBAs - The HBAs cannot be configured to find the LUN I have available, help please! I am using Vcenter and in the Configuration settings for the new host, I go to add storage and it cannot find the LUN, so I check to make sure the HBAs are installed correctly and they are and comunicating fine with my Brocade Switch. But when I look at the host under networking the ethernet NIC team shows up and for Storage Adaptors the HBAs are there. But in adding or configuring storage itself, I only see the CD ROM player and not the HBAs so no LUNs are reported to install... I have 6-8 LUNs available on my filer and 17 other ESXi hosts running the same config and all are fine, I dont get it... Any suggestions would be welcomed. As I mentioned before I do almost all of my configuration work out of Vcenter.

Tony

[GogglesP]

One other thing I forgot to mention, these are FC HBAs...

Thanks - Tony

[a_p_]

Although I assume you already did this:

• double check zoning on the FC switches (did you enable the changed zoning configuration)
• ensure the ESXi host's WWNs are properly registered on the storage system
• ensure the LUNs are presented to the host

André

[GogglesP]

In answer to all the responses...

I have added the FC cards WWNs to the Filer. I have zoned the HBAs ports on the Brocade and saved then enabled the new zoning config. The host was presented with the LUN and added to the map group. I have done this many times before with other servers and HBA configurations and never seen this issue, ever. The only thing I have different on this server is that the Hypervisor-OS is stored on an SDcard and there is no local hard disk... Nothing elses is different. I have blown it away and reinstalled twice now and I am thinking the next step is to just put the ESXi 5.x Hypervisor oin the machine and see if the cards can be seen via that. I have also tried swapping the QLogic cards out for a spare pair and redone all the configuratrion stuff I spoke of earlier. Thanks anyways folks.

[TedH256]

GogglesP wrote:

...... and I am thinking the next step is to just put the ESXi 5.x Hypervisor oin the machine and see if the cards can be seen via that.....

I don't understand what you mean here? You already have installed ESXi 5.x, correct? Or are you saying that you are going to put a hard disk in and install the ESXi to that?

I've installed dozens of ESXi on both SD cards and hard disks - really there is no difference at all and where the OS is stored has nothing to do with the OS detecting HBA devices.

Something - some detail - has been missed. It has to have been ....

[GogglesP]

Yeah you missed a detail...

I was talking about ESXi version 4.1 in my original post, now I will try 5.x to see if I can emulate the issue.

[TedH256]

GogglesP wrote:

Yeah you missed a detail...

I was talking about ESXi version 4.1 in my original post, now I will try 5.x to see if I can emulate the issue.

oops - sorry!

If 5.x works, then the issue has to be drivers. Have you confirmed that 4.1 has drivers for your specific cards, and that the driver module is loading?

[a_p_]

Installing on disk or SD card should not make a difference, at least I didn't have any issues with SD cards yet.

To find out whether there's an issue with the HBA's seeing the LUNs, you may try to boot into the HBA's BIOS to see whether the LUNs show up!?

André.

[GogglesP]

I have resolved it, thanks for all the help though... The brocade switch was not assigning the target ports correctly as it was assuming the WWN for each port (2per card) was it's own separate card. I had to upgrade the firmware and then clear the WWNs in the zoning config and reassign the correct primary WWNs per device to the zone config the have it applied again..  Boom! LUNS were visible and I got the host running on time. Tony