The QLogic vmnic cannot be enabled and remains down on an ESXi host

Products

• VMware

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• On an ESXi host, the QLogic vmnic cannot be enabled and remains down.
• esxcli network nic down/up commands cause a QLogic vmnic to remain offline.
• Performing these troubleshooting steps with a vSwitch/dvSwitch with 2 uplinks (e.g. vmnic0, vmnic1) fails.
  
  
  1. Log in to the host as root using SSH or the DCUI.
  2. Run the esxtop command, you see that vmkX is on vmnic0.
  3. Run this command: esxcli network nic down -n vmnic0
  4. When the failover completes, you see that vmkX is now on vmnic1 according to esxtop (failover completes successfully)
  5. Run this command: esxcli network nic up -n vmnic0
  6. When the failover completes, vmkX is now on vmnic0 according to esxtop. This indicates that failback completed as set (default behavior). However, connectivity testing shows that there is no connectivity out of vmnic0.
  
  
• The driver information on your Qlogic card is:
  
  
  NIC: QLogic Corp QLogic 10 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
  DRIVER: v2.00.00.57
  FIRMWARE: v1.40.8

Cause

This is a known issue with the QLGE driver. When commands are issued, the driver does not handle the command-set correctly resulting in the vmnic to remain offline.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, upgrade your QLogic NIC driver:

• For ESXi 5.0/5.1, use version 2.0.0.59, available at VMware Downloads.
• For ESXi 5.5, use version 3.0.0.58, available at VMware Downloads.

For information on installing async drivers, see Installing async drivers on VMware ESXi 5.0, 5.1, and 5.5 (2005205)

To work around this issue, reload the Qlogic module:

1. Unload the QLGE driver by running this command:
   
   vmkload_mod -u qlge
   
   
2. Reload the QLGE driver by running this command:
   
   vmkload_mod qlge

Alternatively, reboot the ESXi host.

Additional Information

How to download and install async drivers in ESXi 5.x/6.x
ESXi ホスト上の QLogic 製 vmnic がダウン状態のままで使用できない