X710 LLDP broken with ESXi

[JJohn26]

Hi. We have Dell PowerEdge 730s that have Intel X710 cards. LLDP does not work at all. Latest Dell firmware for the card and driver from the VMware HCL. We are running latest ESXi v6.5. I have noticed some threads that LLDP just does not work.

This is very important to us. Is there a time frame when this will be fixed? Thanks,,,

[idata]

Hi Jeff2000,

Thank you for posting in Wired Communities. Just want to double check if your network adapter is an Dell OEM X710 since you mentioned updated to the latest Dell firmware, if yes, have you check with Dell? Can you elaborate more when you said LLDP does not work at all. Thank you. Thanks,Sharon

[idata]

Hi Jeff2000,

Please feel free to provide the information to better assist on this inquiry. Thank you. Thanks,Sharon

[JJohn26]

Hi. I actually opened a case with intel a week ago. I was told by the case owner that Intel is aware of the issue but will not fix it. I have to say it's extremely disappointing. To have Intels flagship 10gb card not work with VMware with the simple lldp protocol is ridiculous. The attitude of you guys not providing a fix is pretty much thumbing your nose at us. I regret buying these cards for our infrastructure refresh and really will think twice about any Intel nic in the future. Very unfortunate.

[idata]

Hi Jeff2000,

Thank you for the update and I am sorry to hear this. We have forward your feedback to the appropriate department. Thanks,Sharon

[idata]

Hi Jeff2000,

Just to give you an update we are now looking into this, however we do not have the timeline yet. Thank you again for bringing this matter to our attention and apologize for any inconvenience this might have caused.Regards,Sharon

[JJohn26]

Hi. That is very good news. Would you like the VMware and Dell ticket numbers I had opened on this, if you need to contact them? Or I guess you guys have your own contacts. Please let me know if I can assist in anyway and please keep the community posted. It is a very critical feature we would like to have working. Thanks,,,

[idata]

Hi Jeff2000,

Thank you for the reply, there is no need for the case ticket number from VMware and Dell. We will update you once there is any feedback or in case additional information is needed. Thank you for your time on this matter.Regards,sharon

[JBris3]

Hi,

I'm encountering the same issue on our hosts.

I installed the latest native driver (i40en 1.5.6) and the latest firmware (6.0.1) on the card. In the release not of the driver they says that you can disable the LLDP agent by providing a parameters to the Driver Module.

I provided the parameter in the driver module :

[root@xxxx:~] esxcli system module parameters list -m i40en

Name Type Value Description

------- ------------ ----- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LLDP array of int 0 Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) agent: 0 = disable, 1 = enable, (default = 1)

RxITR int Default RX interrupt interval (0..0xFFF), in microseconds (default = 50)

TxITR int Default TX interrupt interval (0..0xFFF), in microseconds, (default = 100)

VMDQ array of int Number of Virtual Machine Device Queues: 0/1 = disable, 2-16 enable (default =8)

max_vfs array of int Maximum number of VFs to be enabled (0..128)

Unfortunately, the problem didn't disappeared, vCenter always claim that the card is not LLDP capable and I can't see if LLDP frames are dropped or not.

I really need LLDP or CDP to work to be able to configure my SDN backend correctly so he can do his magic.

Have anyone already tried or tested this before ?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Best regards,

Julian

[Brian_J_Intel1]

Make sure you have done a complete power cycle of the server after a Firmware update. After the system comes back up then run the following command.

esxcli system module parameters set -m i40en -p LLDP=0

After the command is completed, ESXi requires a reboot.

This will disable the LLDP offload engine on the XL710/X710/XXV710 adapters and it then should pass the LLDP to the OS.

[JBris3]

Hi,

I already rebooted multiple times and typed this command also. If LLDP frames should be passed to the system, the Physical NIC shouldn't show "LLDP not available on this Physical NIC" in the configuration window of my host (in vCenter).

Is there any other way to see if the NIC receive LLDP frames correctly ?

Thanks in advance.

Best regards,

[JBris3]

Hi,

Someone found the solution on the VMWare forum.

To be honest the type "Array of Int" for the LLDP parameter bothered me a lot and I didn't check it further.

I tried his solution and it activate the LLDP feature on 2 of my 4 port NIC.

This means that if you want to deactivate the LLDP agent from intel on a 4 port NIC you have to give LLDP=0,0,0,0 as parameter. Each 0 corresponding to one NIC.

Many thanks Bruce of the VMWare forum for this finding !

Have a nice day !

[CSmit29]

This is the Intel Ethernet team responding to your post.

For LLDP information we have created a blog post. Please use the below link to get detailed information on driver, firmware and configuration.

This blog post should answer questions surrounding the LLDP firmware agent on the Intel Ethernet 700 Series Network Adapters.

/community/tech/wired/blog/2018/05/22/using-intel-ethernet-700-series-network-adapters-in-vmware-esxi-6x https://communities.intel.com/community/tech/wired/blog/2018/05/22/using-intel-ethernet-700-series-network-adapters-in-vmware-esxi-6x

[DHend8]

The LLDP behavior is certainly not standard, read this entire post for the details

This article give the most succinct explanation behind the LLDP issue

http://thenicholson.com/where-did-my-host-go/ Where did my host go.... - Virtual Ramblings

You might want to just Google "X710 ESXi". This nic has had quite a few more problems than just LLDP