Support for newer Emulex LPe37xxx amd LPe36xxx Fiber channel adapters on XCP-ng 8.3 - your testing is needed

MrQ

We have been working on a version of the emulex-lpfc RPM package that would support both old and new hardware (the work-in-progress documentation can be found at https://github.com/xcp-ng/xcp-ng-org/pull/518), and we would really appreciate your help testing the installation ISO or the updated RPMs to make sure it works as expected on your hosts.

The new (testing) ISO can be found here

The updated RPM can be pulled directly from here (to update the driver on an already installed XCP-ng host):.

The new RPM bundles two different versions of the lpfc kernel module, lpfc.ko handles the Emulex Fiber Chanell adapters that were already supported while a lpfc14.ko handles the newer generations.

Whether you are running an older generation Fiber Chanel Adapter or a more recent one, it would be great to get confirmation it works for your use case!

Any remarks on the documentation PR is welcome too!

poddingue

I went digging and three threads turned up people who already have this hardware.
@yeopil21 in https://xcp-ng.org/forum/topic/11799 had an LPe37102-D on a Dell R770 that never showed up at all, @jinju0504 in https://xcp-ng.org/forum/topic/11946 ended up on the -alt package on an R670, and @lukas in https://xcp-ng.org/forum/topic/8847 was running an LPe31002-M6-D with NVMe-oF back on 8.3 beta2.

That last one is the older generation, so I'd guess it's the side where you most want to hear nothing regressed.

Tagging them in case the cards are still on their benches.

jr-m4

Third update:
It looks more and more that I had goofed something up in my testing. So please disregard everything in the post below.
The driver does work to make our LPe37000/LPe38000 series FC-cards work. Which is nice. Thanks!

~~Good morning

So I might've found an issue with this driver release. That I'm trying to troubleshoot and collect data on.

We have two LUNs presented to our dev-pool (xcp-dev), running on R650xs. When I have attached one LUN to xcp-dev I can't see the other LUN.
This works on our older R350s

Removing the attached LUN, makes a LUN visible again. But now we're getting some strange behaviour. And looking into if it is misconfigured from the Dell Powerstore, or if it is on the host(s) itself.~~

Details:
multipath is enabled

Host on xcp-dev

98:00.0 Fibre Channel [0c04]: Emulex Corporation LPe37000/LPe38000 Series 32Gb/64Gb Fibre Channel Adapter [10df:f500] (rev 11)
        Subsystem: Emulex Corporation Device [10df:f522]
        Kernel driver in use: lpfc
        Kernel modules: lpfc14
98:00.1 Fibre Channel [0c04]: Emulex Corporation LPe37000/LPe38000 Series 32Gb/64Gb Fibre Channel Adapter [10df:f500] (rev 11)
        Subsystem: Emulex Corporation Device [10df:f522]
        Kernel driver in use: lpfc
        Kernel modules: lpfc14

Update:
~~After managing to revert my previous tests and forget the existing (wrong) LUN from xcp-dev. I can now confirm a problem.

There are three LUNs. Let's call them 101, 102, 103

When I attach one LUN (103) to xcp-dev, I am no longer able to see the other LUNs. That means I can't add a second one. I am expecting to be able to see 102 available.

However, on old-dev, that has two LUNs attached already (101 & 102). It can see 103 as expected.~~

host on old-dev

02:00.0 Fibre Channel [0c04]: Emulex Corporation LPe12000 Series 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapter [10df:f100] (rev 03)
        Subsystem: Emulex Corporation LPe12000 Series 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapter [10df:f100]
        Kernel driver in use: lpfc
        Kernel modules: lpfc
02:00.1 Fibre Channel [0c04]: Emulex Corporation LPe12000 Series 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapter [10df:f100] (rev 03)
        Subsystem: Emulex Corporation LPe12000 Series 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapter [10df:f100]
        Kernel driver in use: lpfc
        Kernel modules: lpfc

Second Update:
This might be unrelated. Seems that we're having weird behaviour with the LUNs in general. Please disregard the statement above for now

MrQ

@jr-m4 thank you so much for testing this updated driver.

Just to make sure, I understand now that you confirm the driver is working as expected and the issues you had were not related to it? Or are there any problems still with this new driver?

Many thanks again for spending the time to test and report.

jr-m4

@MrQ said:

@jr-m4 thank you so much for testing this updated driver.

Just to make sure, I understand now that you confirm the driver is working as expected and the issues you had were not related to it? Or are there any problems still with this new driver?

Many thanks again for spending the time to test and report.

Hi

Yes. I believe I was chasing a red herring of my own doing. I have not found anything actually problematic with this driver at all.