Qlogic HBA driver fails to load during ESX OS startup

[gparker]

Hi,

I have 2 Dell PE2950 servers attached to my EqualLogic SAN. Each server contains 2 Qlogic iSCSI QLE4060 HBAs. I've installed the latest build of ESX 3.5-U2 onto both hosts. I've successfully configured the hardware iSCSI initiators on both servers and they initially were both seeing their volumes/LUNs on the array OK.

When I re-boot one of the servers, it fails to load the Qlogic drivers. I have to login to the COS and type in the command vmkload_mod qla4022. Everything then works fine. How can I get ESX to load the HBA drivers automatically whenever I need to re-boot ESX?

Regards,

George,

[Texiwill]

Hello,

Run esxcfg-boot -q vmkmod

Is the driver in this list also are there any arguments for it. If it is not in the list then you need to configure the system to place it in the list and if there are arguments most likely they are incorrect so you need to remove them.

esxcfg-module and esxcfg-boot will be your friends on this.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

[gparker]

Hi Edward,

Yes, the qlogic driver is listed when I run the esxcfg-boot -q vmkmod command and yes, there are 2 arguments. I will examine the arguments closely to see if either of them contains a syntax error and let you know.

I've tried esxcfg-module and esxcfg-boot, but to no avail as yet. So hopefully the answer will lie with one of the arguments being incorrect (fingers crossed).

When I boot the host and watch ESX load, I do see the qlogic driver attempting to load and I'm sure that I see some sort of error message, but it scrolls off the screen too fast. Is there a log that's capturing the startup of ESX? Is it /var/log/boot.log?

Regards, George.

[Texiwill · Accepted solution]

Hello,

Yes it could be in /var/log/boot.log or the output of 'dmesg'. I would also look in /var/log/vmkernel. THe arguments are incorrect. After you load the module by hand with no arguments use esxcfg-boot -r. At least the last time I had this problem that is what it took to remove the arguments. Once you do that you should be able to reboot and then add back in the appropriate arguments.

If you list the arguments we can assist further.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

[gparker]

Hello Edward,

Yes - it was a typo mistake in the HBA driver load parameters...I left off one character!

Problem now solved.

Thanks again,

George.