Issues Resolved In this Driver Disk

Includes general enhancements and bug fixes.

Installing the Driver Disk

Customers should use XenServer Command Line Interface (CLI) to install this update. Once the driver has been installed, the server must be restarted. As with any software update, Citrix advises customers to back up their data before applying this driver disk.

Please note that the attachment to this article is a zip file. It contains both the driver disk ISO mentioned below, and the source code for the driver. The zip file should be unzipped (to produce the driver disk ISO image), before carrying out the steps below. The source code file is not necessary for driver disk installation: it is provided to fulfill licensing obligations.

Installing as Part of a Clean XenServer Installation

1. After you have selected your keyboard layout at the first installer prompt, you will be presented with a welcome screen. At this point, press F9 on your keyboard, and insert the CD with the driver disk in it, or use one of the other methods such as installation over the network.
   Note: If installation over HTTP or FTP is to be used, the ISO image must be unpacked at that location (i.e. the installer expects to find the contents of the ISO at that network location, not the ISO itself).
2. The installer will proceed to attempt to load the driver. If this is successful, you can continue with the installation as normal. Near the end of the installation, you will be prompted to re-insert the driver disk (otherwise known as a XenServer supplemental pack) so that the driver can be installed onto disk. You must re-supply the driver disk at this point. Failure to do so will mean that the installation will not contain the new drivers. After this step, no further action is required.

Mobile Phones Definition

If the installer fails to load the new driver from the driver disk, it is likely to be because an earlier version of the driver has already been loaded. In general, this is because a hardware component is present that is supported by the version of the driver that ships as part of XenServer (even if another component is present that requires a newer version of the driver). To avoid the existing driver being loaded, use the following procedure.

1. Reboot the host, leaving the XenServer installation CD-ROM in the drive.
2. At the boot: prompt, type:

   shell

3. You will now be presented with a command prompt. Type the following:
   

   rmmod qed
   rmmod qede
   rmmod qedf
   rmmod qedi
   rmmod qedr
   

   If this succeeds (i.e. there are no error messages printed), the installer's versions of the drivers have been unloaded. If error messages are presented, it is likely that other drivers depend on one or more of the drivers you are attempting to unload. If this is the case, please contact Citrix Technical Support.
4. Type

   exit

   or press Control+D on your keyboard, to return to the installer.
5. Use the procedure described above to provide the driver disk to the installer, which should now load correctly.

Installing the Update by using the xe Command Line Interface

Perform the following steps to install the update remotely using the xe CLI:

1. Download the update to a known location on a computer that has XenCenter installed.
2. Upload the update:
   

   xe update-upload file-name=driver-qlogic-fastlinq-8.53.0.3.iso
   

   Note: The UUID of the update is returned when the upload completes.

   
   
3. Apply the update:
   

   xe update-apply uuid=011ec767-7c9c-4224-a588-3f8580ced558
   

4. To complete the installation, restart the host. This ensures that the driver loads correctly.

Files

Update Files

RPMs Provided

More Information

For a list of the driver versions and the latest driver disk updates available, see Driver versions for XenServer and Citrix Hypervisor.

If you experience any difficulties, contact Citrix Technical Support.

For information on how to build driver disks, refer to Citrix XenServer Supplemental Packs and the DDK Guide .

I recently had a customer running into storage performance issues, and we determined that Qlogic CNA I/O card firmware and driver upgrades were in order.

Updating the drivers on multiple hosts if you have VMware Update Manager is easy. Just simply import the VIB into the patch repository, setup or change out the drivers in an existing baseline, and remediate your hosts. You can see similar instructions on my other blog post about updating Cisco UCS drivers within vSphere environments.

But what about firmware updates?

Qlogic QConvergeConsole

Qlogic has a pre-boot package you can use to update the firmware, but that’s not automated. Plus, it can get pretty tedious having to boot off a USB stick or image remotely through an out of band management card.

Thankfully, Qlogic has a set of utilities to help you get more information about your Qlogic cards, and deploy new adapter firmware packages right from vCenter!

How do you take advantage of this?

You need to deploy the vCenter Qlogic plug-in. There are two packages available – one for the thick client, and one for the Web Client. I would recommend the Web Client one. First off, VMware has ceased development of the thick client, so generally using web plug-ins when given a choice is better. Secondly, I quite honestly had issues even getting the vSphere client plug-in to work properly, but the web client plugin worked great. Both had installation issues. I neglected to write down the exact wording, but the installer (and this was on a Windows installable vCenter 5.5 server) said something to the effect of an invalid console mode. After some googling, I found for other software from other manufacturers this can be overcome by setting the compability mode to Windows 7/2008R2. After doing that, both installed easily.

You also need to deploy the CIM provider VIB to the ESXi hosts. This is again another simple VIB deployment to the hosts, but does require a reboot. Updated drivers and CIM provider can be done to save time.

How to update Qlogic firmware

To update the firmware on Qlogic HBAs, navigate to the host you wish to update, and go to Manage > QConvergeConsole. Be patient, as the plug-in gathers and displays the information. The plug-in isn’t exactly a speed demon. Once it displays information for the HBAs, you click on the card on the left pain of the plug-in, and then click the card you wish to update. You’ll get current information about the card, including firmware information, and various features. You can even toggle some modes on the card like Personality Type and SR-IOV.

Click “Update Adapter Flash Image”. In the next window, browse to the downloaded card firmware, select the bin image, and click OK. You’ll then be provided with a confirmation dialogue box that shows you the firmware you’re currently running, and the new firmware you’re about to install. Click OK to proceed.

Be patient as it deploys the firmware. This can take several minutes. Once completed, you’ll receive a dialogue box that says the firmware will not take effect until after you reboot.

Note also if you have multiple Qlogic cards in your server, you must update each card individually, even if they’re the same model card.

Drivers Qlogic Mobile Phones & Portable Devices

At this point, reboot your ESXi server normally, and verify firmware updated successfully after the server boots back up.

Drivers Qlogic Mobile Phones & Portable Devices Wireless

FYI, for this customer, updating the drivers and firmware increased synthetic benchmarks by about 250%. It’s definitely worthwhile to check for these updates, especially if your environment isn’t performing up to snuff.