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UCS VNIC drivers for SLES 11.3

SunJustWorks
Level 1
Level 1

Greetings,

Looking for best practices and any recommendations on utilizing the Cisco delivered VNIC drivers versus the native drivers included with SLES.  We are currently running firmware 2.2.3(e) on UCS B200 M4 blades running SLES 11.3.  The version of SLES has native fnic version: 1.5.0.22, enic version: 2.1.1.39, and current kernel version: 3.0.101-0.47.96.

The version available on the UCS CD contains: 

cisco-enic-kmp-default-2.1.1.75_3.0.76_0.11-0.x86_64.rpm

cisco-fnic-kmp-default-1.6.0.12b_3.0.76_0.11-1.x86_64.rpm

The README_rpm indicates that the kernel version should match, which they do install, but II cannot find any documentation if they are just looking for 3.x kernel version to match.  And installing the Cisco drivers will taint the kernel, due to third party drivers.  Not sure if this would be a deal breaker or not.

Again, looking for any comments on best practices, pro's or con's.

Thank you in advance!

1 Accepted Solution

Accepted Solutions

Evan Mickel
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

To some degree the answer here is dependent upon specific hardware architecture.  SLES 11.3 is only officially supported on the B200-M4 with the E5-2600 V3 processor line.  This can be verified within UCSM by navigating to Equipment/Chassis/Server/Inventory and locating the CPU details therein.

Assuming that the proper hardware levels are met, the enic and fnic drivers for 2.2(3) are (as you correctly stated) 2.1.1.75 and 1.6.0.12b respectively.  

The short answer is that no, this should not cause any issues as these are the specifically produced drivers for this operating system version so installed the .75 and that .12b would be preferred.

If you wish to run the inbox drivers they will likely work comparably but could cause reliability or performance issues.  I have included the interop utility below as it may be handy for you to have around as well and is helpful in these sorts of situations.

To your point, there are no specific best practices guides from Cisco directly with relation to this as the official standpoint from Cisco would be that running the drivers listed within the interop utility is the correct method to move forward.  

Interop Utility:

================================================

https://ucshcltool.cloudapps.cisco.com/public/

View solution in original post

2 Replies 2

Evan Mickel
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

To some degree the answer here is dependent upon specific hardware architecture.  SLES 11.3 is only officially supported on the B200-M4 with the E5-2600 V3 processor line.  This can be verified within UCSM by navigating to Equipment/Chassis/Server/Inventory and locating the CPU details therein.

Assuming that the proper hardware levels are met, the enic and fnic drivers for 2.2(3) are (as you correctly stated) 2.1.1.75 and 1.6.0.12b respectively.  

The short answer is that no, this should not cause any issues as these are the specifically produced drivers for this operating system version so installed the .75 and that .12b would be preferred.

If you wish to run the inbox drivers they will likely work comparably but could cause reliability or performance issues.  I have included the interop utility below as it may be handy for you to have around as well and is helpful in these sorts of situations.

To your point, there are no specific best practices guides from Cisco directly with relation to this as the official standpoint from Cisco would be that running the drivers listed within the interop utility is the correct method to move forward.  

Interop Utility:

================================================

https://ucshcltool.cloudapps.cisco.com/public/

Thank you for the response, was very helpful!

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