Emulex Hba Drivers

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I have seen some problems when running the wrong driver version against firmware version, so here is a guide how to find the information you need to check compatability on ESXI 5.x and 6.0.

I will get all the in the console via SSH.

How to find NIC information:

With the command:

Emulex 3 digit model number adapters do not fully support SLI-3 and therefore do not support NPIV. The LPFC 8.2.X driver supports all adapters running SLI-2, but NPIV support is not available in SLI-2 mode. For SLI-4 and SLI-3 supported adapters, use the latest recommended firmware for NPIV support. Note: This driver kit supports legacy HBA adapters. For OneConnect UCNA drivers, see. NOTE: Although most Fibre Channel drivers register a model name and description within sysfs, not all scsi drivers will. For example, the Smart Array, SIL2424 and ATA HBA, as shown in the above configuration, do not supply that information. For those types of cards you must use lspci -k to retrieve the information. I hope the article was useful. Emulex network adapters are high-performance adapters that consolidate traffic for networking, Fibre Channel and FCoE storage. Includes FCoE Converged Network Adapter (CNA) and Host Bus Adapters (HBA).

I can see the names of the NIC, here: vmnic0 and vmnic1

With the command:

I can see this information:

  • Adapter name: NC553i
  • Driver: elxnet
  • Driver version: 10.5.121.7
  • Firmware level: 10.2.340.19

How to find HBA information:

Emulex Hba Utility

There 2 ways to find the information dependent on if you are using native og legacy driver, I will show how to with the native driver:

With the command:

​I can see the names of the NIC, here: vmhba3 and vmhba4

With the command:

I can see this information:

  • Name: QMH2562
  • Firmware 8.01.02
  • Flash firmware level: 7.03.00
  • Bios: 3.24
  • Driver version: 2.1.27.0

With the command:

I can see this information:

  • Driver: qlanativefc

Notes:

Emulex Hba Drivers Update

Information for the lagacy/Linux style driver look in the file:

Check compatibility:

We now have the information for the driver and the firmware, now we wil check the compatibility in the VMware HCL list. Some time we don’t know the exact name of the adapter, then we can use the hardware identifier:

Emulex Hba Drivers Reviews

With the command:

I can see this information:

Emulex
  • VID = 1077
  • DID = 2532
  • SVID = 103c
  • SDID = 3261

This information we use in the VMware HCL site at: http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=io

I know that this is a Mezzanine card so I choose this, but the list for both of them should properly be the same.

The result looks like this:

In this case there are only one result, that does not match our driver and Firmware version is N/A.

Then I check the hardware vendors support, VMware has a KB that links to the vendors: https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2030818

In this care it’s HPE and goes to there recipes.

Emulex Hba Drivers

So I need to upgrade both driver and Firmware.

Emulex Driver

NOTES:

In some cases the listed firmware or driver is not accessible by VMware og Hardware vendor, for download, please contact Hardware Vendor and/or VMware.

The output for the HBA may vary between vendors.