no devices on broadcom bcm5709 iSCSI adapter on ESXi 4.1

[compendius]

Hi,

I successfully connected the VSphere 4 'software iSCSI adapter' to my NAS. It could see the devices no problem.

I even followed this and got 'software iSCSI' port binding and failover working

http://blogs.vmware.com/kbtv/2011/01/how-to-configure-iscsi-port-binding-on-vsphere-4.html

So far so good.

I wanted however to use the broadcom hardware iSCSI adapters as I have read that performance is better. So I first of all removed the previous iSCSI software adapter config and disabled it.

I went through the procedure of creating an ISCSI VMkernel port, associating it with just one NIC and bonding a broadcom  iSCSI hardware adapter to the VMkernel port

I followed this official document -

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_iscsi_san_cfg.pdf

and found a useful summary here -

http://cosonok.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/configuring-broadcom-iscsi-adapter-with.html

I then used dynamic discovery to find the iSCSI target. This was found fine....BUT there was no device. No matter what I tried (rescan, reboot, refresh etc) I could not get the Broadcom hardware iSCSI adapter to see the device on the target despite being able to see the target and the target wwn.

Almost the exact same issue was reported on the forums here a while ago -

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/276433

The implication is that this is a Broadcom driver error.

How can I resolve this?

(the combination we are using is Dell R610 and Broadcom bcm5709)

....forgot to add that neither the NAS or VSphere are using jumbo frames

The logs give the following message -

./messages:May  4 10:21:51 iscsid: Login Failed: iqn.1986-03.com.sun:02:cc7434eb-9524-490f-b22f-fe5737e906c0 if=bnx2i-b8ac6f144d77@vmk2 addr=******:3260 (TPGT:1 ISID:0x1) Reason: 00040000 (Initiator Connection Failure)

this is similar to this forum post , again with no resolution --

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/276238

more added -

I have just found a recent discussion concerning VSphere 5 and what looks like exactly the same issue. Somone has posted a workaround in that scenario, but even if the workaround would work on VShpere 4, it would not be appropriate for us.

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/342168

Thanks

Message was edited by: compendius

Message was edited by: compendius

[KamilAzmer]

From what i'm understand that you are not able to used hardware iscsi initiator but you are success using esxi software initiator,

It you are already update your driver, what is your current bcm5709 driver version, it's driver inside was supported for hardware initiator?

How the way that you configure the hardware iscsi initiator, it's was you are adding from the network to create the iSCSI software initiator?

Let me summary the step if you can review back :

1. Go to your network adapter.

2. Select your broadcom network adapter

3. Click on Add, and it's will ask you which adapter you wanted to create

4. Select the iSCSI Software Adapter

5. Then go to Storage Adapter you will see the new adapter is appeared (if you never did this before)

6. Enable the iSCSi

7. Set the discovery address, and provide the iqn and map on it.

8. Rescan

This the way that using hardware initiator for broadcom, dont forget to bind you vmkernel to nic. I hope taht this url able to help you, http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=102564...

If your driver not updated, please download at here https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details/dt_esx41_broadcom_netxtremeii_032311/ZCV0YnR0anBiZColcA==

My one cent only!

[compendius]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply

Driver version is as follows -

~ # esxupdate query --v | grep -i bnx2
deb_vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-bnx2i_400.1.8.11t5.rc2.8.1-4vmw.2.18.582267     inst      alled     2012-01-10T09:09:57+00:00
deb_vmware-esx-drivers-net-bnx2x_400.1.54.1.v41.1-3vmw.2.18.582267          inst      alled     2012-01-10T09:09:57+00:00
deb_vmware-esx-drivers-net-bnx2_400.2.0.7d-6vmw.2.18.582267                 inst      alled     2012-01-10T09:09:57+00:00

I will check to see if they need upgrading.

I am unsure from your reply why you mention configuring the iSCSI software adapter. The whole point of this is to 'only' enable the Broadcom iSCSI hardware adapters and not rely on the iSCSI software adapter?

Thanks

[compendius]

After finding this thread -

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1822072

I think I am going to ditch my plan to use the hardware iSCSI offload adapters and opt for the iSCSI software adapter alone as it works well.

[KamilAzmer]

Yes, it will work and much better if u use with iscsi binding on (esxi 5)

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