esxi 5.5 can't find blade mezzanine storage card p700m

[biokovo]

A few days ago I upgrade esxi from 5.1 to 5.5 on 4 HP 460c blade servers with p700m mezzanine card and external SAS storage.

I download HP esxi image.

On 2 blade I done upgrade and after that everything was ok.

On other 2 blade I done clean install and after that I don't see mezzanine storage card in esx.

Thanks on help.

[MKguy]

Please post the output of the following ESXi shell commands from both, a working and a non-working host:

# esxcli storage core adapter list

# esxcli software vib list | grep hpsa

# esxcli hardware pci list | grep "Device ID: 0x3230" -A25 -B13

This is the most up to date hpsa driver for the p700m controller, it's possible the upgrade retained an older driver:

scsi-hpsa-5.5.0.58-1OEM.550.0.0.1331820

http://vibsdepot.hp.com/hpq/feb2014-550/esxi-550-devicedrivers/hpsa-5.5.0-1487947.zip

[DanielOprea]

Hi,

Please see these 2 articles:

Re: Duda con VUM

Re: Update Manager not showing patch as available/required

You must configure the HP VUM repository and update the ESX with all patches from HP:

http://vibsdepot.hp.com/index.xml

[biokovo]

Thanks.

Good host:

# esxcli storage core adapter list

HBA Name  Driver       Link State  UID                   Description

--------  -----------  ----------  --------------------  -------------------------------------------------------------------------

vmhba0    hpsa         link-n/a    sas.3001438005c76d00  (0:9:0.0) Hewlett-Packard Company Smart Array P700M

vmhba1    hpsa         link-n/a    sas.5001438012419350  (0:12:0.0) Hewlett-Packard Company Smart Array P410i

vmhba2    be2iscsi     online      iscsi.vmhba2          (0:2:0.2) Emulex Corporation Emulex OneConnect OCe11100 10GbE, iSCSI UCNA

vmhba3    be2iscsi     online      iscsi.vmhba3          (0:2:0.3) Emulex Corporation Emulex OneConnect OCe11100 10GbE, iSCSI UCNA

vmhba32   usb-storage  link-n/a    usb.vmhba32           () USB

vmhba33   bnx2i        unbound     iscsi.vmhba33         Broadcom iSCSI Adapter

vmhba34   bnx2i        unbound     iscsi.vmhba34         Broadcom iSCSI Adapter

# esxcli software vib list |grep hpsa

scsi-hpsa                      5.5.0.50-1OEM.550.0.0.1198611          Hewlett-Packard  VMwareCertified   2013-10-16

# esxcli hardware pci list | grep "Device ID: 0x3230" -A25 -B13

000:009:00.0
   Address: 000:009:00.0
   Segment: 0x0000
   Bus: 0x09
   Slot: 0x00
   Function: 0x00
   VMkernel Name: vmhba0
   Vendor Name: Hewlett-Packard Company
   Device Name: Smart Array P700M
   Configured Owner: Unknown
   Current Owner: VMkernel
   Vendor ID: 0x103c
   Device ID: 0x3230
   SubVendor ID: 0x103c
   SubDevice ID: 0x323d
   Device Class: 0x0104
   Device Class Name: RAID bus controller
   Programming Interface: 0x00
   Revision ID: 0x04
   Interrupt Line: 0x0a
   IRQ: 10
   Interrupt Vector: 0x32
   PCI Pin: 0x00
   Spawned Bus: 0x00
   Flags: 0x0201
   Module ID: 4156
   Module Name: hpsa
   Chassis: 0
   Physical Slot: 2
   Slot Description: Mezzanine 2
   Passthru Capable: true
   Parent Device: PCI 0:0:9:0
   Dependent Device: PCI 0:9:0:0
   Reset Method: Link reset
   FPT Sharable: true

000:00c:00.0
   Address: 000:00c:00.0

Bad host:

# esxcli storage core adapter list

HBA Name  Driver       Link State  UID                   Description

--------  -----------  ----------  --------------------  -------------------------------------------------------------------------

vmhba0    be2iscsi     online      iscsi.vmhba0          (0:2:0.2) Emulex Corporation Emulex OneConnect OCe11100 10GbE, iSCSI UCNA

vmhba1    be2iscsi     online      iscsi.vmhba1          (0:2:0.3) Emulex Corporation Emulex OneConnect OCe11100 10GbE, iSCSI UCNA

vmhba3    hpsa         link-n/a    sas.500143801240a320  (0:12:0.0) Hewlett-Packard Company Smart Array P410i

vmhba32   usb-storage  link-n/a    usb.vmhba32           () USB

vmhba33   bnx2i        unbound     iscsi.vmhba33         Broadcom iSCSI Adapter

vmhba34   bnx2i        unbound     iscsi.vmhba34         Broadcom iSCSI Adapter

# esxcli software vib list |grep hpsa

scsi-hpsa                      5.5.0.58-1OEM.550.0.0.1331820          Hewlett-Packard  VMwareCertified   2014-05-02

# esxcli hardware pci list | grep "Device ID: 0x3230" -A25 -B13

000:009:00.0
   Address: 000:009:00.0
   Segment: 0x0000
   Bus: 0x09
   Slot: 0x00
   Function: 0x00
   VMkernel Name: vmhba2
   Vendor Name: Hewlett-Packard Company
   Device Name: Smart Array P700M
   Configured Owner: Unknown
   Current Owner: VMkernel
   Vendor ID: 0x103c
   Device ID: 0x3230
   SubVendor ID: 0x103c
   SubDevice ID: 0x323d
   Device Class: 0x0104
   Device Class Name: RAID bus controller
   Programming Interface: 0x00
   Revision ID: 0x04
   Interrupt Line: 0x0a
   IRQ: 10
   Interrupt Vector: 0x32
   PCI Pin: 0x9c
   Spawned Bus: 0x00
   Flags: 0x0201
   Module ID: 4109
   Module Name: vmklinux_9
   Chassis: 0
   Physical Slot: 2
   Slot Description: Mezzanine 2
   Passthru Capable: true
   Parent Device: PCI 0:0:9:0
   Dependent Device: PCI 0:9:0:0
   Reset Method: Link reset
   FPT Sharable: true

000:00c:00.0
   Address: 000:00c:00.0

The drivers on bad host are newer so I suppose maybe the problem is with new driver.

I upgrade HP bundle http://vibsdepot.hp.com/hpq/feb2014-550/esxi-550-devicedrivers/hpsa-5.5.0-1487947.zip with VUM like you say, but "bad" esx didn't find any new driver and "good" esx find a few HP drivers. Of course, I am not dare to install it

[MKguy · Accepted solution]

Looks like it's really an issue with the newer hpsa driver.

The following bundle contains the older driver scsi-hpsa-5.5.0.50-1OEM.550.0.0.1198611.x86_64 that's running on your working hosts:

http://vibsdepot.hp.com/hpq/sep2013-550/esxi-55-devicedrivers/hpsa-5.5.0-1287942.zip

Grab the hpsa-5.5.0-offline_bundle-1287942.zip file from within that archive and try to downgrade the driver on a bad host:

esxcli software vib install -d /tmp/hpsa-5.5.0-offline_bundle-1287942.zip --force

[biokovo]

I had to remove new driver and after installing this drivers everything it is ok.

It is very likely that the problem is with new hpsa drivers.

Thanks

[MKguy]

Just a heads up on this one: There is a new hpsa driver (5.0.0.60-1 (11 Jun 2014)) that supposedly restores support for the p700m controller:

http://www.hp.com/swpublishing/MTX-a6dfea639c284d46956d29bee4

From the fixes/revision notes:

Restore support for legacy HP Smart Array P700m controller.

[Sysxp]

Ok, there is still something I can't understand.

Lets look into HP's "VMware FW and Software Recipe".

And we see this:

Ok, doing a clean installation of the latest HP ESXi 5.5 U2 (VMware-ESXi-5.5.0-Update2-2068190-HP-5.77.3-Nov2014.iso).

Upgrading the P700m firmware to 7.24, updating server BIOS, FW, etc to the latest versions.

Still no sign of my storage adapter.

Downloading http://vibsdepot.hp.com/hpq/sep2014/esxi-550-devicedrivers/hpsa-500-5.0.0-2043343.zip, manually install it, - no use, still no adapters present.

And only AFTER reverting to older version as suggested by MKguyit finally see the storage card:

The question is: Why it refuses to work with the latest driver? It it some kind of HP problem? Maybe VmWare?

Or am I doing something wrong?

Why HP recommends a non-working solution and provide a non-working driver?

[Paul11]

You can find an advisory here: http://h20566.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=c04633836

Also the VMware FW and Software Recipe has been updated.