FC storage disappear after ESXi upgrade to 7.0 U3

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• Storage devices and LUNs become entirely missing on the ESXi host immediately after applying patches or upgrading the host environment to ESXi 7.0 U3w.
• During ESXi upgrade, the lpfc driver of the Emulex HBA could not be replaced to the supported version in the image. 
• All the missing storages are connected to Emulex LPe12000 8Gb/s PCIe 2.0 FC HBA .

 

Environment

• VMware vSphere ESXI 7.X

Cause

• During the patch cycle, the native ESXi 7.0 U3-compatible Emulex driver (lpfc) is replaced by an incompatible asynchronous driver version (e.g., version 14.2.673.47). This version is incompatible with the ESXi 7.0 U3 kernel storage stack.
• Its a known issue document the reference article: Broadcom Emulex cards are not detected after ESXi upgrade to 7.0 U3

Resolution

The incompatible driver must be downgraded to the certified native release.

1. Download the supported lpfc driver from Broadcom support web: Compatibility Guide for LPFC driver
2. Copy the offline bundle zip file to the ESXi host datastore.
3. Take SSH of the ESXi host and login with root credentials. 
4. Put the ESXi host in maintenance mode:
   • esxcli system maintenanceMode set --enable true
5. Identify the current installed driver version
   • esxcli software vib list | grep lpfc
6. Remove the incompatible driver
   • esxcli software vib remove -n <lpfc_driver_name>
7. Install the certified native VIB package:
   • esxcli software vib install -v /vmfs/volumes/<datastore_path>/<native_lpfc_driver>.vib
8. Reboot the ESXi host:
   • esxcli system shutdown reboot -r 'Downgrading lpfc driver'\
9. Verify the correct driver version is running post-reboot:
   • esxcli software vib get -n lpfc
10. Exit maintenance mode:
    • esxcli system maintenanceMode set --enable false