Intel Volume Management Device LED Management Tool
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Intel Volume Management Device LED Management Tool

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Article ID: 321315

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Updated On:

Products

VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article provides information about the Intel Volume Management Device (Intel VMD) enabled NVMe Driver LED Management Tool for VMware*. The Intel VMD LED Management tool interfaces with the Intel VMD-enabled NVMe driver to create specific blinking patterns on the backplane of Intel Xeon Scalable platforms with PCIe Solid State Drives attached to Intel VMD enabled domains.
 
Intel VMD is a hardware logic provided inside of the Intel Xeon processor. Intel VMD aggregates the NVMe PCIe SSDs attached to its root port and acts like an HBA does for SATA and SAS. Intel VMD provides Error management, Surprise Hotplug, and LED Management. This article will be focusing on the Intel VMD LED Management tools.
 
 
PCIe Solid State Drive (SSD) storage lacks a standardized method to blink LEDs and indicate the status of the device. Locating a drive through a visual indicator is crucial for storage administrators to find and replace PCIe SSDs in a data center with multiple racks of storage. Without location indicators there is much greater risk of data loss occurring if the incorrect drive is removed.
 
*The Green LED below is the activity LED controlled directly from the SSD. The Amber LED represents the LED coming from the slot on the backplane, and is what Intel VMD is responsible for.
 
 
Intel VMD LED Management offers the IBPI style of LED management as defined by the SFF-8489 standard. Intel VMD brings a standardized method to PCIe SSD storage to control LED indicators on both direct attached and switch attached PCIe storage. For the PCIe register interface technical details necessary to support the Intel VMD method of LED management refer to the references section of this paper.
 


Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7

Resolution

Product Overview

This release of the Intel VMD LED Management Tool includes a simple command line tool, installed as a vib file on VMware ESXi 6.0 U3 and/or ESXi 6.5 operating systems. This tool requires the Intel VMD-enabled NVMe driver to be installed on the ESXi host.

Note: In vSphere 6.7U1 GA, the VMD-enabled Systems using the inbox VMD LED management tools seems to be not functioning with "lsu-intel-nvme-vmd-plugin". You will need to download the correct lsu-intel-nvme-vmd-plugin-1.0.0-4vmw.680.0.0.00000.i386.vib from the Intel download site. For more information, see Intel VMD ESXi Tools.
 
Accompanying this tool is a VMware ESXi Intel VMD Framework Plug-in. This framework allows the Intel VMD LED management tool to be used as a vSphere Disk Serviceability Plugin.

Download

Download the Intel VMD management tool and Framework Plug-in from the Intel Validation Internet Portal.
 
Disclaimer: The software included with this message is accompanied by a software license that describes the terms, conditions, and restrictions for installing and/or using the software. Installing, copying, and/or using the software indicates your acceptance of the terms, conditions, and restrictions in the accompanying license. If you do not accept the software license, do not install/copy/use the software and return the attached items to Intel.

Installation Details

Intel VMD-enabled NVMe driver, Intel VMD LED management command line tool, and the VMware Framework plug-in are all available with this download collateral from the Intel Validation Internet Portal (VIP) as vibs that can be installed in ESXi 6.0 U3 and ESXi 6.5.
 
Intel VMD-enabled NVMe Driver for Out-of-Box installations:
  • VMware ESXi 6.0 U3: iavmd-1.2.0.1011-1OEM.600.0.0.2768847.x86_64.vib
  • VMware ESXi 6.5: iavmd-1.2.0.1011-1OEM.650.0.0.4598673.x86_64.vib
Intel VMD LED Management command line tool: intel-esx-vmdcli-8007.vib
VMware LSU Framework plug-in: VMware_bootbank_lsu-intel-vmd-plugin_1.0.0-2vmw.663.0.0.6656822.vib
 
Assuming the vibs have been downloaded to the tmp directory, install the vibs using this command:
 
esxcli software vib install –v “/tmp/vibName”

System Requirements

  • Intel Xeon Scalable platform with The Intel VMD enabled on NVMe PCIe SSD connected PCIe lanes.
  • Intel VMD-enabled NVMe driver is installed.
  • Intel VMD LED management command line tool is installed on the following VMware* ESXi operating system versions: 6.0 U3 & 6.5.
  • Prior to using the command line tools, the esx command line shell should be enabled from either the vSphere client or from the direct console of the esxi host system.
Notes: On ESXi systems, the tool only works on PCIe NVMe drives using the Intel VMD-enabled NVMe driver.

Intel VMD LED Management Tool in VMware ESXi environment

For each Intel VMD-enabled domain, the Intel VMD-enabled NVMe driver will enumerate the devices behind the Intel VMD root port. ESXi will assign the HBA Controller ID prefix to the controller, as vmhba# (For example: vmhba0, vmhba3, etc.) and also map a SCSI target ID to the NVMe device.
 
To find the mapping between scsi target ID and the device name (t10.NVMe___xxxx), run this command:

esxcfg-mpath -L
 
For example:
 
esxcfg-mpath -L
 
vmhba1:C0:T1:L0 state:active t10.NVMe____INTEL_SSDPE2MD016T4_PHFT5462005Q1P6JGN__00000001 vmhba1 0 1 0 NMP active local pscsi.vmhba1 pscsi.0:1
vmhba1:C0:T0:L0 state:active t10.NVMe____INTEL_SSDPE2MD016T4_PHFT5462003V1P6JGN__00000001 vmhba1 0 0 0 NMP active local pscsi.vmhba1 pscsi.0:0
 
The scsi target ID is the number following the T in vmhba1:C0:T1:L0. In this example it is 1.
 

Syntax for Intel LED CLI tool:

 
vmdcli HBA controller ID set-led -d scsi target ID -l function
 
These are the supported LED management function commands(lower case letters only):
  • identify
  • off
  • fault
  • rebuild
This is an example of using the CLI tool to test LED Management.
 
To find the various adapters HBA controller ID (vmhba#), use the esxcfg-scsidevs –a command to list the vmhba# for nvme.
 
 
To find devices that are attached to them, use the esxcfg-scsidevs –A command
 
 
To locate the path that the vmdcli tool vib installed to, run this command: find / -name vmdcli
 
 
Examples:
 
Sending the LED command API to run the identify blink pattern for scsi target ID 0:
./vmdcli vmhba1 set-led -d 0 -l identify
 
Command to turn off blink pattern to scsi target ID 1:
./vmdcli vmhba1 set-let –d 1 –l off

VMware VMD LED Framework Plug-in in ESXi Environment

Prerequisites:

 

  • The Intel VMD-enabled NVMe driver and Intel VMD-enabled LED Command line interface tool must first be installed on the system.
  • Install the VMware ESXi VMD LED Framework Plug-in according to installation steps above.
These blinking patterns are supported with the Framework Plug-in:
  • locator
  • off
Use the following Syntax to enable:
 
esxcli storage core device set –d scsidev -l blinking pattern
 
Enabling the identify blink example:
 
esxcli storage core device set -d t10.NVMe____INTEL_SSDPE2MD016T4_PHFT5462005Q1P6JGN__00000001 -l locator
 
Disabling the identify Blink example:
 
esxcli storage core device set -d t10.NVMe____INTEL_SSDPE2MD016T4_PHFT5462005Q1P6JGN__00000001 -l off
 

LED Management with the Framework Plug-in for VMD in VMware vSAN

VMware ESXi LED management Framework can be helpful to use in the VMware vSAN environment.
 
The following blinking patterns are supported:
  • Locator
  • off
Prerequisites:
 
The Intel VMD-enabled Driver, Intel VMD LED Command Line Tool, and VMware VMD LED Framework Plug-in are all installed on the system.
 
Procedure:
Ensure vSphere Disk Serviceability Plugins for test driver is installed.
 
To turn on LED of capacity drives in every disk group:
  1. Log in to VCenter Server
  2. Go to Disk Management in vSAN Cluster
  3. Select the disk group
  4. Select drive to turn the indicator on.
  5. Click the turn on locator button(amber LED should start blinking)


    or click All Actions>Turn Locator LED on


To turn off LED of capacity drives in every disk group:
  1. Select the disk group
  2. Select the drive
  3. Select the turn off locator button (amber LED should be off)


    Or click All Actions -> Turn Locator LED off

 
Contact Information and References:
 
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