SNA DLC traffic stopped passing after upgrade to ESX 3.5

[DHBob]

Looking for any ideas. I have 5 hosts in a VI3 HA cluster. I have a MS SNA gateway (VM guest machine) server using SNA DLC that was working fine on any of the ESX 3.0.2 hosts in this cluster. I rebuilt one to ESX 3.5 and migrated this gateway VM to it and DLC traffic stopped. I migrated it back to the original host and it works fine. I upgraded an existing ESX 3.0.2 host to 3.5 and migrated the gateway VM to it and DLC stopped. I tried opening up the ports 12000-12004 on the balky host with no success. So I stopped the firewall on the balky host, no improvement. Any thoughts as to what's different between ESX 3.0.2 and ESX 3.5 that interferes with DLC?

[DHBob]

To my knowledge VMware is still working on a patch with no target date

for the completion of the patch.

Bob Trumbly

Systems Analyst

Denver Health

303-436-7973

[TarunC]

Thanks for the prompt response...guess I have to go back to 3.0.2 for my one lonely sna server.

[stuten]

I would certainly encourage anyone that is experiencing this problem and has not yet opened a case to call support and open a case so that it can be added to the list. VMWare knowing the number of people being affected by the problem is a valuable way of knowing what priority to put on the patch.

[JBanker]

Not yet. I just followed stuten's advice and opened an SR (# 1103861431).

[CIChavez]

Colleagues,

I have the same problems with Windows 2003 Server and HIS 2000 over ESX Server 3.5 in three servers. I need a solution too.

My SR number is 1104027917.

[TarunC]

It is amazing to me that Vmware has not solved this problem yet for those of us that need to pass SNA DLC traffic.

I guess just continuing to open SR's and bumping the thread may help.

[jpelland]

I've received a beta patch from VMWare Engineering to test in our lab environment. Should be done in a day or 2. I'll keep you all posted.

-Jerome

[DHBob]

There is a patch that is due to be released on the 3.5 update 1. Last I heard this should be released on April 10. As I understand it the problem turned out to be with DLC packets are smaller than standard TCP/IP packets and the new networking components discarded the short packets.

[TarunC]

Thanks for the update....seems like we are on our way.

Fingers crossed here....

[DHBob]

Since the patch will impact our production environment we are going to hold off until we get the GA release in the Update. Will be interested in what Jerome finds out after testing.

Bob

[pcatozzo]

Technical explanation why SNA don't work on ESX 3.5.

The problem is on ethernet encapsulation frame type. ESX 3.5 encapsualte SNA traffic on ethernet in ethernet Version II, while previous ESX encapsulate ethernet SNA traffic in IEEE 802.3.

In ether type II add ethertype field 80D5 ( IBM SNA Service on Ethernet) http://www.iana.org/assignments/ethernet-numbers.

802.3 is incopatible whit ether type II and comunication did not ocur.

[strandgaard]

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Ved spørgsmål om Vmware licenser, kan du kontakte Martin Nymann Bergmann på telefon 72426741 eller alternativt mail til license@topnordic.com

[Clayton_Sikes]

Have there been any updates to this issue? I just upgraded my environment over to version 3.5 and applied all of the latest patches. I have about 10 SNA servers that are running as VM's in my environment that are now running on their own dedicated ESX 3.0.2 host.

Thanks, Clay

[jpelland]

Unfortunately, we were unable to install the patch on our server. Working this out with Hasan @ Support. I just wish I had more time to work on this.

On a slightly off topic note, If any of you are looking for work in the Montreal, QC area, let me know. We're looking for a VMWare certified admin.

[Clayton_Sikes]

Our SR# 1108194445 has been submitted for this issue.

[admin]

ESX 3.5u1 was released last night.

"7. Fixes a network connectivity issue where packets with an 802.2LLC header (without SubNetwork Access Protocol (SNAP)) are dropped by the vmxnet driver in ESX Server 3.5. This issue has been observed with NetBEUI and SNA/DLC protocols."

Regards,

-Kris

[stuten]

Kris, thanks for the heads up on the patch. I received notification about the 3.0.x patches but didn't see anything about the 3.5 patches.

I have applied the patch to our test esx servers and have our test HIS servers running on them. They have been successfully passing SNA DLC traffic for about 5 hours now. It certainly appears to be fixed!