In a DAS configuration, after patching or updating qlnativefc adapters to v4.1.37.0 or above, the qlnativefc HBA is unable to log into fabric and see the available storage devices.

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article is to make VMware Administrators aware of a known issue that might be encountered when patching and updating hosts/qlnativefc drivers.

Symptoms:

In a configuration where the storage target is connected directly to the ESXi host (i.e. Direct Connect/DAS/N2N topology), running Marvell FC HBA driver qlnativefc v4.1.37.0 or above, the qlnativefc driver loads and claims the HBAs on the host but is unable to log into fabric and see the available storage devices.

When the driver is loaded and HBA connected to a direct attached storage device (N2N topology), the following message is seen:

xxxx-xx-xxTxx:xx:xx.xxxZ cpu78:2098223)qlnativefc: vmhba4(45:0.1): qla24xxReportIdAcquisition:3534:RIDA: format 2/N2N Primary port id xxxxxx.

In the case where the storage devices are not available, the following message from driver is absent.

xxxx-xx-xxTxx:xx:xx.xxxZ cpu78:2098693)qlnativefc: vmhba4(45:0.1): qlnativefcUpdateFcport:3176:WWPN xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx, targetId x, port Id xxxxxx:0 ONLINE
 

Note: The preceding log excerpts are only examples. Date, time, and environmental variables may vary depending on your environment.
 
In order to identify the Drivers and Firmware in use on a ESXi host, please see the below KB:
 
Determining Network/Storage firmware and driver version in ESXi 

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0.x

Cause

A change was introduced in the qlnativefc driver to skip session creation before the adapter is marked online, in order to quiesce activities during the driver unload time.
For direct attach topology, the login to the target device can complete before the adapter is marked online in some configurations. In such scenarios, the driver skips the session creation and as a result does not discover any direct attached storage device.

This issue affects qlnativefc driver version 4.1.37.0 onwards in ESXi 7.0.
As well as drivers 5.2.46.0/5.3.1.0/5.3.2.0 in ESXi 8.0

Resolution

This issue is resolved in later releases of QLogic's qlnativefc drivers

For ESXi 7.0 this issue is resolved in version : 5.3.80 
For  ESXi 8.0  this issue is resolved in version : 5.4.80 

 

Workaround:

For ESXi 7.0 rollback to a qlnativefc to a version earlier than qlnativefc 4.1.37.0