UCSM Connected - PXE to Intel NIC

[daniel.barnette]

Hey all,

Has anyone tried to boot to a PCI network card while connected to UCSM?  Since UCSM isn't aware of the interfaces themselves as vNICs, I'm not really sure how to go about this.  I've got a use case where the server is using vHBAs only for storage, but it's network connections are being sent directly to the ToR and not the FIs.  TIA!

[Kirk J]

Hmm, that may be a problem as UCSM is expecting to drive the boot order, which would have to reference an invalid nic that UCSM doesn't know about/manage.

You may need to boot into the NICs option ROM config utility during POST, which is where you should be able to define the PXE related settings.

As long as the option ROM is enabled for the PCI-E slot that NIC is in, then you may be able to get around it that way.

If UCSM is turning off the option ROM for the PCI-E slot for your add in card, then you may need to modify your BIOS policy to enable it for that slot.

Kirk...

[daniel.barnette]

Any hints at what the BIOS token is for PCIe Slot 1 of a C220 M5SX?  I see IOESlot1 OptionROM, but I'm not sure that's the right one.  I don't see PCI Slot 1 OptionROM specifically called out.

[Kirk J]

Not sure how much this varies by UCSM release version, but on 4.04, there is option for:

PCIe Slot n OptionROM    drop-down list

Whether Option ROM is available on the port. This can be one of the following:

In your case that should be PCIe Slot N1 state, set to enabled,

Kirk...

[daniel.barnette]

That didn't seem to do anything.  When I look at the BIOS setup screen (F2) all of the OptROMs are enabled but their status is "Not Loaded".  Do I need to manually disable something like option rom optimization or something like that so it won't try to only load option roms that are in the boot order.

[Kirk J]

Agree,, please turn off all other option ROMs that are not needed.

Which Intel PCI-E card is the one we are trying to get the PXE functionality for?

Kirk...