vEthernet is down. (hold down)

[snewar]

Hi,

I am getting error after creating  a vHBA under storage tab in service profile of one of the ucs B-series server.

After creating the vHBA, when i checked the status of the vHBA in VIF Paths tab, i observed the link status is unknown.

I have given the port output below:

vHBA-01----->vfc980----->veth9172----->1/1/8

FI-01-A(nxos)# sh int vfc 980
vfc980 is down
    Bound interface is vethernet9172
    Port description is server 1/8, VNIC vHBA-01
    Hardware is Virtual Fibre Channel
    Port WWN is 23:d3:00:05:73:a5:0e:7f
    Admin port mode is F, trunk mode is off
    snmp link state traps are enabled
    Port vsan is 300
    5 minute input rate 0 bits/sec, 0 bytes/sec, 0 frames/sec
    5 minute output rate 0 bits/sec, 0 bytes/sec, 0 frames/sec
      0 frames input, 0 bytes
        0 discards, 0 errors
      0 frames output, 0 bytes
        0 discards, 0 errors

FI-01-A(nxos)# sh int veth 9172
vethernet9172 is down (holdDown)
    Bound Interface is Ethernet1/1/8
  Hardware: VEthernet
  Encapsulation ARPA
  Port mode is access
  Last link flapped never
  Last clearing of "show interface" counters never
  0 interface resets

JVSL-A-FI-01-A(nxos)# sh int eth 1/1/8
Ethernet1/1/8 is up
  Hardware: 10000 Ethernet, address: 1cdf.0f69.3deb (bia 1cdf.0f69.3deb)
  MTU 1500 bytes, BW 10000000 Kbit, DLY 10 usec,
     reliability 255/255, txload 1/255, rxload 1/255
  Encapsulation ARPA
  Port mode is access
  full-duplex, 10 Gb/s
.......

........

Kindly suggest me where am i making mistake..

Thanks,

Sanjeev

[Robert Burns · Accepted solution]

Sanjeev,

A vfc interface will remain in a hold down state until it's intialised by either the HBA option ROM or the OS drivers.  If you're trying to boot from SAN, ensure you're loading the corresponding Option ROM Host Firmware package with your service profile.  This applies to Emulex & Qlogic based adapters.  The Palo M81KR VIC option ROM will load automatically as long as there is a SAN target configured in the boot policy.

-Which adapter are you using?

-If trying to SAN boot, is your boot policy configured with your SAN targets?

-If local disk boot, has the HBA driver been loaded in the host OS?

Answer/confirm above and we'll look further.

Regards,

Robert

[snewar]

Hi Robert,

Yes, the hba drivers were not updated in the Windows so the vHBA were showing error.

Once the proper drivers were installed the vHBA came up.

Thanks,

Sanjeev

[kg6itcraig]

Have never liked that error. Way too Verbose and means nothing in most cases. If there was a global way to turn it off.

Craig