Tag: Drivers

Update 08/10/2014: HP support recommends to install the following versions of the Emulex firmware/drivers.

Install the following driver and firmware version for the NIC and install on server and check

As it is a ESX 5.1 we would use BE2NET driver

Driver: 4.9.488.0 – http://www.hp.com/
Firmware: 4.9.416.0 – http://www.hp.com/

You can read more about the issues here at http://www.techazine.com. I saw the same symptoms on brand new HP BL460 Gen8 and vSphere 5.1 update 2, the latest build: VMware-ESXi-5.1.0-Update2-2000251-HP-5.68.30-Sep2014.iso released on 2014-09-08.  Hosts randomly disconnects from vCenter, even if those hosts are in maintenance mode (lucky me).

The driver causing the issues is version: net-be2net 10.2.293.0-1OEM.510.0.0.802205 Emulex VMwareCertified 2014-08-25. More information about the drivers included in the latest custom ISO can be found here: http://vibsdepot.hp.com/hpq/recipes/September2014VMwareRecipe16.0.pdf

To solve this issue, you need to downgrade the driver to the previous version. I had no issues with the 4.6.247.10 drivers so I used this one.

I created a PowerCLI script to verify the installed version of the net-be2net on all the BL460c Gen8 blades.

$be2netlist = @()
foreach($vmhost in (Get-VMhost | ?{$_.Model -eq "ProLiant BL460c Gen8"}| sort name)){
    Write-Host "Checking host $($vmhost.name)" -ForegroundColor Yellow
    $esxcli = Get-EsxCli -VMHost $vmhost
        $be2net = New-Object PSObject -Property ([ordered]@{
            vmhost = $vmhost.name
            driver = ($esxcli.software.vib.list() | ?{$_.Name -eq "net-be2net"}).name
            version = ($esxcli.software.vib.list() | ?{$_.Name -eq "net-be2net"}).version        
        })
        $be2netlist += $be2net
}
$be2netlist | ft -AutoSize

The output:

Now we wait for a fix from HP and Emulex.