VCF Administrator Seeking Guidance Booting ESXi 9.0 Boot from NVME over TCP.

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

When configuring NQN to communicate with an NVMe device, the target is not populated to the host.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESX  9.0

Cause

 

The Host cannot access the boot device because it is not visible to the Host's NQN as it's not configured correctly within the SMBIOS of the server.

• Command that lists host NQN:  esxcli nvme info get

FabricsInfo:

• Host NQN: nqn.XXX.org.XXX:uuid:XXXX

 

However, the namespace output is empty:

 

Utilizing esxcli nvme namespace list, an NVME namespace is not available:

 

Name  Controller Number  Namespace ID  Block Size  Capacity in MB

----  -----------------  ------------  ----------  --------------

 

As no device information is present, a configuration issue prevents the device from being reported to the host NQN.

 

Resolution

The device's information to be used as the boot device needs to be configured appropriately in the SMBIOS so the target device's configuration UI is presented to ESX.

Engage the hardware vendor for assistance ensuring proper configuration of the device within the SMBIOS.

 

Additional Information

• NVME Over TCP/IP Guide
• Expanded Esxcli Command Directory for NVME