Trouble with changing speed and duplex of CNA on ESX 4.1

[Mautje]

Hi everyone,

I've got an issue with changing the speed and duplex of an HP NC553i 10Gb 2-port FlexFabric Converged Network Adapter in an ProLiant BL460c G7 server. I'm using ESX4.1 and get the message:

Call "HostNetworkSystem.UpdatePhysicalNicLinkSpeed" for object "networkSystem-1261" on vCenter Server "<servernamer>" failed.
Operation failed, diagnostics report: Operation not supported: Operation not supported

I've allready update the driver to the latest version (should be 2.104.277.3 ?)

I've tried both the command line esxcfg-nics -a vmnic(x) and the graphical equivalent in vSphere.

The server has been rebooted and the CNAs aren't used for FCoE or iSCSI just network connections.

I haven't found any info yet about a limitation of any kind in the driver which would prohibit such a change. I'm trying to put the CNA in auto mode.

Does anyone have an idea what's going on?

[Mautje]

I've got myself a partial answer:

I was wondering what would happen if I checked for new firmware.

The website from HP mentioned a utility called: OneCommand Manager
which I wasn't familiar with. This led me to the Emulex site where I found another driver with version number: 4.0.306.0 which looks like a major leap forward in time if I only look at version number.

The filename of the iso file from this site is:

vmware-esx-drivers-net-be2net_400.4.0.306.0-1vmw.2.17.249663.473366.iso (this file is also available from the VMware site if you check the version history).

The filename of the iso file from the vmware site (pointed to from the HP site) is:

vmware-esx-drivers-net-be2net_400.2.104.277.3-1vmw.2.17.249663.416102.iso

After the installation of this driver which goes fine I was able to change the speed and duplex to auto using the command line.

But....

In the graphical user interface from the vSphere Client I now see one option in the dropdown box which is: 10000 Mb. Full Duplex and the current option is blanc.

Checking the network adapters in the vSphere client indicates that the configured speed and duplex is negotiate.

So configuring the HP NC553i 10Gb 2-port FlexFabric Converged Network Adapter which turns out to be an Emulex OneConnect 10Gb Ethernet Controller is now partially possible.

[srgdr]

Mautje, did you ever solved this problem? We are in the same situation right now. 😕

Thanks,

Remy

[Mautje]

Hi Remy,

No never got another way to fix this.  Maybe there's a newer driver available which is able to deal with it but I haven't checked it any further.

[vinodvasu]

Hi

we had the same problem with HP G7 Blade NIC553i after ESxi installation unable to set the NIC speed we solved the issue following the below steps

1) Login to the vSphere Power CLI machine

2) Download the drivers from the below link

  https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/details?downloadGroup=DT-ESX4041-EMULEX-be2net-413340&productId=2...

3) unzip to the folder in the vSphere Power CLI machine (probably copy the the zip file from the bundle folder to the bin folder of perl directory)

4) now put the G7 server to the maintance mode

4) excute this command

     ./vihostupdate -server xxxxx --install -bundle EMU-be2net-4.1.334.0-offline_bundle-654249.zip

5) reboot the server

6) connect to the server using putty and check the nics details using the command

      esxcfg-nics -i

7)now check the speed option in the VI client or virtual center

it should solve the problem

thanks

Vinod

[vinodvasu]

Sorry small correction to the command

.\vihostupdate.pl -server xxxxx --install -bundle EMU-be2net-4.1.334.0-offline_bundle-654249.zip