Alternative device identifiers are blank for NVMe devices

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

For NVMe devices, ESXi generates device identifiers based on the information it retrieves from the devices. Generally, the NVMe devices support identifiers in EUI64 or NGUID formats, or use both formats. NGUID is a Namespace Globally Unique Identifier that uses the EUI64 16-byte designator format.

There are two types of identifier for NVMe which is eui.xxx and t10.xxx_controller_serial_number. For devices that support only NGUID format, both eui adn t10 identifiers are present but for devices that supports EUI 64 ID format, only t10 uuid is generated.

 

For devices that supports only NGUID, the t10 uuid comes as an alternate uid as seen using the command: esxcli storage core device uidmap list

 

But we are unable to see the t10 uids in any NVMe devices and the alternate UID is blank.

 

Symptoms:

Alternate UUID for NVMe devices are not displayed in Vsphere releases as of May 2023

 

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0
VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x

Cause

ESXi does not generate the alternate t10 UID and only generates eui.xx uid.

Resolution

The capability to generate t10 uuid will be added in later releases of Vsphere.

Workaround:

No workaround.

 

Additional Information

Impact/Risks:

There is no impact due to this. The UUID is used an identifier once the NVMe device is emulated on ESXi layer.