New FC adapter, no new interfaces in Scale

[Janus0006]

Hi,
I just replaced my old Emulex FC adapter for a Intel one (after a good advise here), But I cannot see it available in Scale.
With a "lspci", I can see the 2 interfaces and I can also see the harware link (green light) on the adapter

84:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet 10G 2P X520 Adapter (rev 01)
84:00.1 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet 10G 2P X520 Adapter (rev 01)

The Link Status is also UP on the other side

May I missed a step in the configuration of Scale ?

Thanks

 

[Samuel Tai]

Are you sure you got the correct card? I thought the X520s only did Fibre Channel over Ethernet, and not native FC.

 

[Janus0006]

Are you sure you got the correct card? I thought the X520s only did Fibre Channel over Ethernet, and not native FC.

Unfortunately, you're may be right :(

I bought this adapter after starting thread (https://www.truenas.com/community/t...tween-tn-scale-and-vmware.102837/#post-707928) and receive a comment which seemed logical for me.

But I cannot find any officially supported devices for FC in Scale HW Guide (https://www.truenas.com/docs/scale/gettingstarted/scalehardwareguide/)

What are my option now ? what are officially supported FC adapter ?
As I'm not an expert in FC, Is a DAC cable will be better than a FC cable + 2SFPs ? (I don't think it will change FC for FCoE ?)

Thanks if you can help (or refer me to good documentation on the subject)

 

[jgreco]

what are officially supported FC adapter ?

Historically, there hasn't been any official support for FC. I believe that some headway was made on this in the last year or two, but it doesn't appear to be a major focus, so I wouldn't expect to see any "officially supported" FC cards. Your best shot is probably to research what the best FC options are for the underlying OS and try those cards.

Be aware that using FC to hook up disk shelves is likely to end up as a total disaster; FC generally lacks the bandwidth needed by ZFS to do intensive things like scrubs or resilvers.

Is a DAC cable will be better than a FC cable + 2SFPs ?

Well, a DAC cable is a fixed length item, and may be vendor-locked. For example, if you have DAC cable from vendor A connecting to a FC card from vendor A and a switch from vendor B, you can have a problem if vendor B expects a vendor-locked end. In the worst case, you also cannot use a DAC cable from B if vendor A is also vendor-locked. Using SFP optics allows you to satisfy any vendor locking issues, and using fiber allows replacement of the fiber in case you one day decide to move your server half a rack down -- a $5 replacement fiber cable is invariably cheaper than a DAC cable. I personally think DAC cables are idiotic in most cases, but the flip side is that two SFP's plus a fiber may end up being more pricey than a cheap used DAC cable off eBay. Technologically they are very similar.

 

[HoneyBadger]

Unfortunately, you're may be right :(

I bought this adapter after starting thread (https://www.truenas.com/community/t...tween-tn-scale-and-vmware.102837/#post-707928) and receive a comment which seemed logical for me.

But I cannot find any officially supported devices for FC in Scale HW Guide (https://www.truenas.com/docs/scale/gettingstarted/scalehardwareguide/)

What are my option now ? what are officially supported FC adapter ?
As I'm not an expert in FC, Is a DAC cable will be better than a FC cable + 2SFPs ? (I don't think it will change FC for FCoE ?)

Thanks if you can help (or refer me to good documentation on the subject)

I recall that thread.

I'd like to pose the same question here - is there a hard requirement for the FC protocol? The other option is using iSCSI and conventional Ethernet adapters (of which you already have one in the form of the X520) and eliminating FC.

If you already have a SAN fabric that you need to integrate into, then that's different - in that case, I'd suggest using TrueNAS CORE and some QLogic FC HBAs. Note that the free/CORE versions of TrueNAS have no official FC support; you have to kind of wedge it into working manually with the CTL target (which leads me back to the "can you use iSCSI instead?" question.)

 

[Janus0006]

I verified again, and at this point my issue is more that I do not see my device in the GUI. I only have three interfaces:
2 Ethernet 1Gb interfaces
1 bond interfaces created from my 1 physical NIC

Maybe I miss something, but, at least, I shoud see them in GUI. I can only see them from CLI.

It's normal... or not ?

Thanks again

 

[Samuel Tai]

What does midclt call system.feature_enabled FIBRECHANNEL output?

 

[jgreco]

I verified again, and at this point my issue is more that I do not see my device in the GUI.

Is this a genuine Intel X520 card, with a verifiable Yottamark sticker on it? I seem to recall some users have been showing up here with knockoff X520 cards that don't actually work right (or at all). If you install TrueNAS Core, does the device appear?

 

[Janus0006]

What does midclt call system.feature_enabled FIBRECHANNEL output?

root@grimlock:/etc/network# midclt call system.feature_enabled FIBRECHANNEL
False

 

[morganL]

Fibre Channel is not getting any testing in SCALE. There is more focus on TrueNAS SCALE unique capabilities, Apps, KVM, clustering.

We recommend using iSCSI, that has much more testing.