Solved: Re: UCS VIC (PALO) - Associate a host

Nuno Filipe Alves Ferreira · ‎04-30-2010

Hello,

I have a blade server with the PALO (VIC) adapter and I am testing the VN-Link in hardware feature ...

I have configured everything as per the Cisco UCS Configuration Guide - VN-Link Configuration section

On the ESX host I can see the 2 vNICs I created and then if I ssh into it and do an ifconfig I can see dynamic NICs (vf_vmnicX) - 20

So the Dynamic NICS are in there.

On VMWare I can see the dVS created in the UCS Manager and the port profiles (port groups) ...

My problem is when I am trying to associate the host to the DVS ... If gives me an error and doesn't associate ....

Can someone please help me out here ?

Thanks

Nuno Ferreira

Jeremy Waldrop · ‎04-30-2010

Right but you still have to install the Nexus 1000v VEM, this is required for the control communication between the ESX host and the 6100s. The easiest way is to configure the VUM patch source for the 1000v and then when you add a host to the UCSM managed dvSwitch VUM is invoked and the VEM gets automatically installed.

View solution in original post

Jeremy Waldrop · ‎04-30-2010

Nuno, watch my video blog on this.

http://jeremywaldrop.wordpress.com/2010/03/25/cisco-ucs-vn-link-hardware-implementation-walk-through/

The host has to have the Nexus 1000v VEM installed either manual via cmd line or using vCenter Update Manager like what I did.

You also have to setup dynamic vNIC connections policy on the service profile.

Let me know if you need any help with this.

Nuno Filipe Alves Ferreira · ‎04-30-2010

Jeremy,

I intend to do VN-Link in hardware with the PALO card ... not with nexus1000v

I do have the dynamic vNIC policy on the profile as you can read from my previous post ... I can see the dynamic interfaces in the host ....

Cheers

Nuno Ferreira

Jeremy Waldrop · ‎04-30-2010

Right but you still have to install the Nexus 1000v VEM, this is required for the control communication between the ESX host and the 6100s. The easiest way is to configure the VUM patch source for the 1000v and then when you add a host to the UCSM managed dvSwitch VUM is invoked and the VEM gets automatically installed.

Nuno Filipe Alves Ferreira · ‎04-30-2010

Jeremy ... Oh ok ...

I have the VUM and I configured a baseline repo with the latest VEMs but when I try to add the host I get that failure shown on the initial post ...

Shall I install the VEM manually then ?

Thanks

Nuno Ferreira

Jeremy Waldrop · ‎04-30-2010

Yes, install it manually. In my lab when I add a host to the UCSM managed dvSwitch you can see a new task show up where VUM was invoked to install the VEM.

Nuno Filipe Alves Ferreira · ‎04-30-2010

Jeremy,

Do you know where Can I find the latest version of the VEM module so I can download and install it manually ?

I can't find it anywhere ...

Thanks

Nuno Ferreira

Jeremy Waldrop · ‎04-30-2010

Here you go, you will need a login though.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps9902/index.html

Nuno Filipe Alves Ferreira · ‎05-01-2010

Jeremy,

Thanks .. Found it and tried to install manually on the host.

So as it says in the document we need to have the host in maintenance mode which I did ...

Still when installing it I get this error ....

/usr/sbin/esxupdate -b ./cross_cisco-vem-v120-4.0.4.1.3.0.0-1.12.2.vib update
cross_cisco-vem-v120-4.0.4.1.3.0.0-1.12.2.vib ####################################################################################### [100%]

Unpacking cross_cisco-vem-v120-esx_4.0.4.1.3.0.0-1.12.2.vib ####################################################################################### [100%]

The following problems were encountered trying to resolve dependencies:
   No VIB provides 'vmknexus1kvapi-1-12' (required by cross_cisco-
   vem-v120-esx_4.0.4.1.3.0.0-1.12.2)
   Requested VIB cross_cisco-vem-v120-esx_4.0.4.1.3.0.0-1.12.2 conflicts with
   the host

Can you please advise ?

Thanks

Nuno Ferreira

Nuno Filipe Alves Ferreira · ‎05-01-2010

Well this one was actually easy to resolve ... I installed one of the others supplied in the package and it worked OK

So I have installed the VEM on the host but I am still getting the error of the first post when I try to add the host to the dVS created on the UCS MAnager ....

Any thoughts ?

Thanks

Nuno Ferreira

Nuno Filipe Alves Ferreira · ‎05-01-2010

Ok, It's now sorted

After manual instalation of the VEM I had to uninstall the VUM of my vCenter server because the initial error was an error of the vCenter

Basically when you have vCenter (and/or VUM) on a VM in the host that you want to configure for VN-Link (hardware or software) you are going to run into this problem as appears that VUM cannot update the hosts when the vCenter / VUM is running on a VM of that host.

The steps I tool were:

1 - Manually install the nexus 1000v VEM on the host

2 - Uninstall VUM of my vCenter server

After these steps the host can be added onto the dVS created by UCS ...

The rest is history (and port profiles )

Thanks Jeremy ... I believe Cisco should highlight the need of the Nexus 1000v VEM on the host when doing VN-Link with the PALO card anyway ...

Nuno Ferreira

Jeremy Waldrop · ‎05-02-2010

Nuno, glad you got it worked out. You are right, Cisco needs to put the fact that the Nexus 1000v VEM is required on the host for the VN-Link in hardware configuration.

Also which VEM module you load is based on what build of ESX you are using. Here is the info contained in the readme.txt that comes with the Nexus 1000v download package.

1. VMware ESX400 (build 164009) and ESXi400 (build 171294) (GA) :
VEM400-201004021.zip                         (md5 69740e7082677dd5bc11392c78c67f60)
cross_cisco-vem-v120-4.0.4.1.3.0.0-0.4.2.vib (md5 243a7c62f15b024be100f9d2b9ed30bd)

2. VMware Bulletin ESX400-200906001 (build 175625) and ESXi400-200906001 (build 175625) (Patch01) :
VEM400-201004022.zip                         (md5 1dc16221173a5ba664802927612931f4)
cross_cisco-vem-v120-4.0.4.1.3.0.0-0.5.2.vib (md5 3642a6ae3ce588be134e4d507031d81b)

3. VMware Bulletin ESX400-200907001 (build 181792) and ESXi400-200907001 (build 181792) (EP1):
VEM400-201004023.zip (md5 61ad9559b49d093cd4731de79101a53e)
cross_cisco-vem-v120-4.0.4.1.3.0.0-0.6.2.vib (md5 b9cbf6ec8afae32383713cf32470ee92)

4. VMware Bulletin ESX400-200909001 (build 193498) and ESXi400-200909001 (build 193498) (Patch02):
VEM400-201004024.zip (md5 63ddcecdb252e617178173fd8e86e79b)
cross_cisco-vem-v120-4.0.4.1.3.0.0-0.7.2.vib (md5 4ce6483b5f0f1ced26dd29300bb3bd4f)

5. VMware Bulletin ESX400-200911014 (build 208167) and ESXi400-200911014 (build 208167) (Update01):
VEM400-201004025.zip (md5 94cb2bd9cdf9009e700d177d7a043f32)
cross_cisco-vem-v120-4.0.4.1.3.0.0-1.9.2.vib (md5 99f1c37fe1638ae8dc0918c1437ea311)

6. VMware Bulletin ESX400-200911014 (build 219382) and ESXi400-200911014 (build 219382) (Patch03):
VEM400-201004026.zip (md5 fbcae870f8bfcfebe1e356481f3f1106)
cross_cisco-vem-v120-4.0.4.1.3.0.0-1.10.2.vib (md5 7dffdffec51e91851974359ad3257cec)

7. VMware Bulletin ESX400-200911014 (build 236512) and ESXi400-200911014 (build 236512) (Patch04):
VEM400-201004027.zip (md5 9448ffe4c8b19c1502a191696a416b19)
cross_cisco-vem-v120-4.0.4.1.3.0.0-1.11.2.vib (md5 4cdb7cad33ff70674b04cb20c6782a35)

8. VMware Bulletin ESX400-200911014 (build 244038) and ESXi400-200911014 (build 244038) (Patch05):
VEM400-201004028.zip (md5 6a0dfb99e9326a1a83cac0d6c99af2cf)
cross_cisco-vem-v120-4.0.4.1.3.0.0-1.12.2.vib (md5 3c594c546416785f32822d2403aa2747)

Nuno Filipe Alves Ferreira · ‎05-02-2010

Yeah I saw that after writing the post ...

Anyway everything is now working. On your video you are right ... doing this without the VUM is a bit messy but if you know your build and what to install it not that hard ...

Obviously that with the VUM everything is done automaticaly but I think that not being able to have the vCenter and VUM server on a virtual machine in the host we want to remediate (update) is a major limitation but then again .. that is vmware and not Cisco and this is a Cisco forum.

Thanks again

Nuno Ferreira