Technical White Paper Booting VMware ESXi from FCoE Abstract FCoE is a network technology which transports Fibre Channel traffic over Ethernet network to make use of 10 Gbit speed and reduce the operational costs. This technical white paper gives an overview of FCoE, software and hardware requirements to boot VMware ESXi from an FCoE LUN.
Revisions Revisions Date Description November 2019 Initial release Acknowledgements This paper was produced by the following: Author: Nikhil Kumar Chaturvedi Support: Ramya D R, Technical Writer, IDD team The information in this publication is provided “as is.” Dell Inc. makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the information in this publication, and specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
Table of contents Table of contents Revisions.............................................................................................................................................................................2 Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................................................................2 Table of contents .................................................................................................
Executive summary Executive summary Traditional SCSI was designed to transport Storage Area Network (SAN) traffic between devices in a fabric with shorter distance. Data transport was quick and reliable, but over a short distance. Ethernet was developed to overcome this problem by transporting data over long distances. But the dependency on transmission mechanics such as TCP and UDP brings in latency (especially during TCP retransmission).
Introduction 1 Introduction This document is intended to help the user with configuring Dell EMC PowerEdge server and Dell EMC supported FCoE CNA adapter to boot from SAN. 1.
Introduction • • Dell S5000 Ethernet switch Dell Compellent SC8000 Storage Center Controller For more information about the FCoE boot from SAN, BIOS, and UEFI perspective, see VMware Knowledge Base Article 2148531. In this example testbed, we use Qlogic BCM 57xxx series adapter which is an FCoE hardware offload capable CNA and it uses qfle3f driver module for storage adapter and qfle3 driver module for network processing FCoE frames.
Introduction 13. On the System Setup page, enter the system name and management IP address for the Storage Center, and then click Continue. The wizard prompts you to enable or disable the read and write cache. 14. Select Enable Read Cache and Enable Write Cache, and then Click Continue. 15. Configure SMTP page, to enable alert message emails to be sent to users who have specified a recipient address in their contact properties. Click Continue. 16.
Introduction 3. In the Main Configuration Page, select NIC Configuration. 4. From the Legacy Boot Protocol drop-down menu, select FCoE.
Introduction 5. Select FCoE Configuration, and then click FCoE General Parameters. 6. To enable Boot to FCoE target, in FCoE General Parameters, select Enabled. Following are the options available in the FCoE General Parameters: • • • • • 9 Boot to FCoE Target: Enable/Disable booting to FCoE target after logging in. Target as First HDD: Target appears as a first Hard disk drive (HDD) in the system.
Introduction 7. To enable Connect, select Enable, and then enter the World-Wide Port Name (WWPN) of the target device in the World Wide Port Name Target field and specify Boot LUN as required.
Introduction Note: To get the target WWPN (Controller Port), log in to the storage array and navigate to Hardware-Controllers-IO Ports-Fibre Channel. Note: Boot LUN is the first FCoE storage target's LUN that is used by the FCoE initiator as the system boot device. LUN ID 0 is reserved for Boot LUNs. 8. The host or initiator WWPN is listed in the Main configuration page.
Introduction The below screenshot shows an active zone in a Dell S5000 Switch. The output shown is generated by executing show fc zoneset active command in the Switch command-line interface. For more information, see the PowerSwitch S5000 documents. Following are the two ways to access the storage controller: • • Use a web browser with network access and connect to the eth0 IP address of the controller. Download Storage Manager Client (Windows/Linux) to manage and monitor Storage center (s).
Introduction To get the device driver, firmware details, and additional information in the test setup, see VMware Compatibility Guide.
ESXi FCoE commands 2 ESXi FCoE commands This section lists the commands used for FCoE. 2.1 FCoE capable CNA devices The following screenshot captured with the command that lists the FCoE capable CNA devices: The following are list of commands and its description mentioned in the above screenshot: • • • • • • • • 14 vmhba64: Name of the storage adapter. This refers to the physical adapter on the host. Source MAC: The unique hardware address i.e. physical address of the source node.
ESXi FCoE commands 2.2 LUN pathing information The following screenshot captured with the commands to obtain LUN pathing information: 2.
ESXi FCoE commands 2.
Logging into FCoE during system boot 3 Logging into FCoE during system boot The screenshot below shows the DCBX startup and initiator login to the target to enable OS boot from the FCoE LUN exposed over the network: Data center bridging exchange (DCBX) is a protocol which is an extension to the Link layer discovery protocol (LLDP). DCBX cannot run if LLDP is disabled. DCBX enables the devices connected in a fabric to discover and exchange configuration information.
Logging into FCoE during system boot The following screenshot captured with the commands that lists the FCoE software packages installed after ESXi completes to boot to DCUI.
Troubleshooting 4 Troubleshooting Switches are located between the hosts and storage devices and have visibility to both sides of the storage network. When there is an issue in the fabric, observe if the issue persisting on the host or storage or the switch and then perform a detailed diagnosis.
Summary 5 Summary This paper explains about configuring Dell EMC PowerEdge server, Dell S5000 switch and Dell Compellent SC8000 Storage Center to VMware ESXi from FCoE LUN exposed to SAN.
References 6 References • 21 Booting ESXi with Software FCoE Booting VMware ESXi from FCoE