How to disable HBA card/Port from ESX

[skumar01]

I have two HBA cards installed in HP BL 460c with ESXi 4.1. I want to disable one HBA card from the esx. Please suggest.

[john23]

Afalk, only way to disable the one HBA from esx, You can disable the driver using esxcfg-module -d <module>.

But in this case next reboot, driver will not load, but if both the HBA from same vendor it will disable both of them

[timemachine]

you should be able to do it from thde esx server bios.

TM

[john23]

Hey TM,

Can you tell the option in BIOS.

[timemachine]

it will not be in the general bios......you will have to press the correct key combination while the server boots up ....for an hp server its cntrl+E:

Configuring HBA
After reboot go to the BIOS of the Emulex HBA by pressing [Ctrl]-[E] at the right moment

• Press [Ctrl]-[E] during boot of the Emulex HBA
  
• Do the following for both HBA adapters
  
• Select board ‘1’
  
• Choose ‘2’ Configure this adapter’s parameters
  
• Choose ‘4’ Topology Selection
  
• Choose ‘4’ Fabric Point-to-Point
  
• Press ESC to return
  
• Do NOT Reboot... first configure the other adapter the way u want
  

TM

[john23]

Fabric point to point will disable the HBA card?

[timemachine]

no no i just gave an example you can select the hba / hba port you want to disable and disable it appropriately....dont u see an option to disable it?

TM

[timemachine]

after selecting the appropriate port/hba just look around...u will see the option to disable/enable.....i dont remember the exact option .

[john23]

I am not getting the option...

[timemachine]

i think ur right....i just checked....it seems there is no software option only h/w option ie by not connecting the san cable to the hba card u dont want to use

[skumar01]

Hi Guys,

Hardware disable is not my requirement, I have to enable and disable my HBA card one by one without any reboot.

Please suggest anyother way. Thanks

[john23]

May I know, what exactly requirement is? Port enable disable from switch can also fulfil this.

[skumar01]

We have to do HBA enable/disable twice a month for some activity and Switch activity can be done by storage team only. We are from vmware team and want to perfom it from our end only don't want to reach to storage team to do that everymonth.

[john23]

Thanks for the explaination.

In this case, you can do the port disable using esxcfg-mpath. suppose all 4 path is going to same lun. You can disable three paths using esxcfg-mpath

[stinklyonion]

i agree. i always use esxcfg-mpath which can even disable multiple ports/HBA card. thanks as this would be a refresher as well.