The name of Broadcom FC HBA's vmhba for FC NVMe function changes after upgrading 'lpfc' driver to 14.x

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:
You see below issues after upgrading 'lpfc' driver to 14.x:

• Name of Broadcom FC HBA's vmhba for FC NVMe function changes
• Driver name changes from 'brcmnvmefc' to 'lpfc'.

For example:
In ESXi 7.0U2:
$ esxcfg-scsidevs -a
vmhba4 lpfc link-up fc.20000090fa94894a:10000090fa94894a (0000:d8:00.0) Emulex Corporation Emulex LPe36000 Fibre Channel Adapter
vmhba5 lpfc link-up fc.20000090fa94894b:10000090fa94894b (0000:d8:00.1) Emulex Corporation Emulex LPe36000 Fibre Channel Adapter
vmhba66 brcmnvmefc link-up fc.20000090fa94894a:10000090fa94894a (0000:d8:00.0) Emulex Corporation Emulex LPe36000 Fibre Channel Adapter
vmhba69 brcmnvmefc link-up fc.20000090fa94894b:10000090fa94894b (0000:d8:00.1) Emulex Corporation Emulex LPe36000 Fibre Channel Adapter

In ESXi 7.0U3:
$ esxcfg-scsidevs -a
vmhba4 lpfc link-up fc.20000090fa94894a:10000090fa94894a (0000:d8:00.0) Emulex Corporation Emulex LPe36000 Fibre Channel Adapter
vmhba5 lpfc link-up fc.20000090fa94894b:10000090fa94894b (0000:d8:00.1) Emulex Corporation Emulex LPe36000 Fibre Channel Adapter
vmhba70 lpfc link-up fc.20000090fa94894a:10000090fa94894a (0000:d8:00.0) Emulex Corporation Emulex LPe36000 Fibre Channel Adapter
vmhba71 lpfc link-up fc.20000090fa94894b:10000090fa94894b (0000:d8:00.1) Emulex Corporation Emulex LPe36000 Fibre Channel Adapter

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0.x

Cause

Since version 14.0, 'brcmnvmefc' driver is merged into 'lpfc' driver. The owner driver of FC NVMe function vmhbas are changed from 'brcmnvmefc' to 'lpfc', and these vmhbas are renumbered.

Resolution

This is an expected behaviour in ESXi 7.0 U3.