Lost iSCSI connection after upgrading

[ANSA]

After upgrading my HP Proliant DL380 G7 from ESXi 4.1 to ESXi 5.1 U2, I lost my iSCSI connection.  The fibre connections are just fine, no issue here.

I uses the HP flavour of the update iso via Update Manager.

I would appreciate if anyone who has had this expericnec and resolved it to please share what was done to resolve this issue.

Thanks

[JPM300]

How are you connecting your iSCSI.  Are you using a iSCSI HBA or are you just using NICS and iSCSI software initiator.  If you are just using NICS it could be that you have a type of broadcom nic that can be either a NIC or a iSCSI HBA.  I have seen driver shifts from 4.1-5 and 5-5.1 where the nics drops ports as some of them went into the HBA mode or the driver just had an issue with the NIC that was being used for Software iSCSI initiation.

Let us know.

[ANSA]

Thanks for you reply.  We are NOT using iSCSI HBAs.  We are, however, using iSCSI software.  In this case, do you have any suggestions as to a solution?

[JPM300]

Yeah it is probably a driver change on that particular NIC.  Which NIC's are you using for iSCSI.  Go into your VI client click on one of the hosts that is having issues and go into Configuration > Network Adapters and let us know what the adapter name is that is being used for ISCSI.  We can hunt down some drivers you can try.

[ANSA]

It is not a physical NIC.  It is an iSCSI Software Adapter ...

[JPM300]

iSCSI software adapters binds to nic ports on your host.  Can you post us a screenshot of your virtual networking and of your network adapters?

[ANSA]

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.  This is the NIC:

NetXen HP NC522SFP Dual Port 10 GbE Server Adapter.

[JPM300 · Accepted solution]

Here is the network driver for that card for VMware vSphere 5.1

http://h20565.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/template.PAGE/public/psi/swdHome/?sp4ts.oid=3913538&spf_p...

The current driver version is: 5.0.636 (18 Feb 2014)

It's possible Update 2 put in a new default driver into it or put a driver that just doesn't work properly with that nic.  Is this the only nic that you use iSCSI for?

You should really spread your connections over two physical nics's just encase one of the nics fail so you don't loose connection to your iSCSI unless you can suffer a loss to your iSCSI and it's not a big deal.

Here is the Vmware KB article on how to check which version of network driver you are currently using:

VMware KB: Determining which storage or network driver is actively being used on ESXi host

The document talks about using the update command to update the driver but it is my experience that its better to just do an un-install / install, however you can try the update assuming this is an update to the driver.  I have a feeling this will be a version lower that what is currently in place.

You will use the following command to install or update it:

esxcli software vib install -d zipfilenameofdriver

or

esxcli software vib update -v vibfilenameofdriver

I also found installation instructions inside the zip file

Hope this has helped