Great to find someone else with the same problem. I have not made any progress. Right now I have a case open with VMware.

Initially they asked my to try unloading and disabling the bnx2i module as this is the Broadcom iSCSI hardware module?

If I try and unload it I am told it is unable to as it is busy.

~ # esxcfg-module -u bnx2i

Unable to load module bnx2i: Busy

If I disable it, it doesn't return any output.

~ # esxcfg-module -d bnx2i

I then reboot the server however nothing has changed, there are still hardware Broadcom iSCSI Adapters appearing under storage adapters.

We looked through the BIOS etc trying to find out how to disable the iSCSI offloading engine. In the BIOS it only shows the NICs for the 1Gb fabric A NICs, not the 10Gb NICs. They asked me to log a case with Dell.

Dell talked me through powering off the server, removed it from the chassis and removed the iSCSI offloading key (green thing). This only turns off iSCSI on the 1Gb NICs. I removed one of the 10Gb modules but it has no key to remove to disable iSCSI offloading.

Dell are going to get back to me today / tomorrow to see if they have come up with anything.

What we need is to be able to either disable the VMware hardware iSCSI driver from loading at bootup OR disable the iSCSI offloading engine on the cards themselves.

I will be continuing to persist with Dell and VMware until we get a working solution. They'res all this hype about 4.1 but there's no way I will be going to 4.1 without having jumbo frames enabled, the performance difference is significant.

I think this is one of those classic cases of using the latest technology and we are the ones that hit all these annoying problems that need to get ironed out. In 12 months time people will be raving about 10Gb iSCSI and ESX 4.1 .... but not right now ;o)

VCP3 & VCP4 32846

VSP4

VTSP4

OK I really wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something when trying to disable the bnx2i module. So I removed the 4 x 10GB NIC daughterboard cards and the 1GB iSCSI offloading key from the M710.

I then installed ESXi from scratch. Once installed the following information is shown about the module:

~ # esxcfg-module -l

Name                     Used Size (kb)

bnx2i                    0    88

Here I can see the module is loaded but not used.

So now I unload the module.

~ # esxcfg-module -u bnx2i

Module bnx2i unloaded successfully

When I run the command "esxcfg-module -l" it no longer shows the module in the list.

Then I disabled the module from next boot.

~ # esxcfg-module -d bnx2i

Rebooted server and then listed the modules again:

~ # esxcfg-module -l

Name                     Used Size (kb)

bnx2i                    0    88

So it appears the module is still being loaded even after disabling it. The documentation for the command states:

-d|--disable                  Disable a given module, indicating it should not be loaded on boot.

So VMware, what am I doing wrong here? I am disabling the module so it is not loaded on next boot however it is being loaded on next boot.

After powering off the M710, re-installed the cards and iSCSI key and powering back on again the host still shows additional hardware storage adapters.

I have a case open with VMware on this and they asked me to consult Dell. I have consulted Dell and yesterday I got an engineer on the phone who actually wanted to resolve this. I have sent him documentation on how to reproduce my problem (detailed, easy to follow steps). They are going to reproduce the problem in-house and get back to me.

I have also responded to VMware with todays results on how disabling a module for next boot does not work.

VCP3 & VCP4 32846

VSP4

VTSP4

Thanks for that, luckily I've not experience a PSOD while troubleshooting this one.

VCP3 & VCP4 32846

VSP4

VTSP4

Thanks for the input.

I'm all for new technologies like hardware offloading but it baffles me that VMware release this new technology without a way to turn it on or off.

This is preventing us from migrating to 4.1 because we don't want a 50% performance drop.

VCP3 & VCP4 32846

VSP4

VTSP4

A post with information but no resolution.

OK so at the moment VMware are asking me to ask Dell how to disable the iSCSI Offloading on these 57711 NICs. They are asking if there is a way to enable a network card BIOS on bootup so we can configure them.

At this point I had already gone through all of this with Dell and they said no. After seeing orRuss's response about firmware I thought I might double check Dell's website for any firmware update. Nothing there yet.

However I did download the Broadcom DOS diagnostics utilties. I have since downloaded the latest ones from the Broadcom website.

http://www.broadcom.com/support/ethernet_nic/netxtremeii10.php

Looking through the manual there is no option to disable the iSCSI Offloading engine, this would be the ideal solution (maybe not ideal but a solution none the less).

There is an option to enable or disable management firmware. I assume this would be something like a BIOS screen you enter on bootup.

3.9 Command line option -mfw

cmd -mfw

Descriptbn: emble (1 )/disable (0) management firmware

Syntax: -mfw <1|0>

1: enable;   0: disable

Example:

At the DOS prompt enter:

uedaig -mfw 1 -dev 2

-Enable management firmware on device 2.

The commands I used to try and enable the management firmware is as follows:

uedaig -mfw 1 -dev 1

uedaig -mfw 1 -dev 2

And so on for all 8 devices I have.

Each command takes about 3 minutes to complete, it appears to run through four seperate tests (A, B, C, D).

After rebooting the host I don't see any new BIOS option to enter a management interface :o(

Additionally you can run the following command that skips the four tests:

uedaig -t abcd -mfw 1 -dev 2

Currently I have a Dell engineer assigned to this case who is pretty keen to resolve the problem. They are at the stage of escallating this to their EqualLogic team and so on. Will keep you all updated as to how this goes.

VCP3 & VCP4 32846

VSP4

VTSP4

I urge you to log a case with both VMware and Dell about this.

The more people that report the problem the sooner we will get it resolved.

I'll keep you posted none the less.

VCP3 & VCP4 32846

VSP4

VTSP4