QLogic (R) Corporation QLogic Ethernet NX2 Software Kit RELEASE T7.12c.4.3 Gold (Monday, July 13, 2015) RELEASE NOTES Software Compatibility ====================== This release of software supports: - BCM5709C Gigabit Ethernet Adapter - BCM5709S Gigabit Ethernet Adapter - BCM5716C Gigabit Ethernet Adapter - BCM57711 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter - BCM57712 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter - BCM57800 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter - BCM57810 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter - BCM57840 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter Contents of the CD ================== **** Release Version Information Table **** Product Version 1. Windows 2008/2012 Drivers Windows NDIS Driver (NX2) 7.12.32.0* Windows bxDiag 7.12.1.0* Windows VBD Driver 7.12.0.2* Windows VBD Driver NX2_Ev 7.12.41* Windows iSCSI Offload Driver 7.12.0.0f* Windows FCoE Offload Driver 7.12.4.0* iSCSI Crash Dump Driver 7.12.0.0 FCoE Crash Dump Driver 7.12.0.0 2. Linux Drivers Linux NX2 package 7.12.36 Linux Driver NX2 2.2.5o Linux Driver NX2_Ev 1.712.36 Linux iSCSI Driver NX2 2.11.2.0 Linux Driver CNIC 2.5.20i Linux FCoE Driver NX2 2.9.6 Linux FC Lib Module 2.0.3 Linux uIP Driver 2.11.1.0 3. VMWare Drivers VMware ESX 5.0/5.1 Driver package 50.712.13 VMware ESX 5.5 Driver package 55.712.15 4. Teaming software Windows QLASP 2.0.3* 5. Utilities DOS uxDiag (NX2) 7.10.2 DOS ueDiag (NX2_EV) 7.12.56 Firmware Upgrade for Linux NX2 2.7.19 Firmware Upgrade for VMWare NX2 2.7.9 Firmware Upgrade for Windows NX2 2.7.18.0 6. Documentation User Guide for QLogic CNA 7. Management Apps QCS 17.0.14.0 QCS for Linux 17.0.14 QCS Command Line Interface 17.0.14.0 Windows QLMAPI 7.31.1.0 Linux QLMAPI 6.24.1 SNMP-Basp 8.0.0.0 SNMP-Extensible-Agent 8.0.0.0 CIM for Windows 17.0.12.0 CMPI provider for Linux 2.6.16 8. Installer Umbrella Installer 18.10.2.6 9. Pre-Boot MBA/PXE (NX2) 7.12.1 MBA/PXE (NX2_Ev) 7.12.8 uEFI (NX2) 6.2.8 uEFI (E2) 7.12.1* uEFI (NX2_Ev) 7.13.11* FCoE Boot 7.12.4 iSCSI Boot 7.12.1 Note: An asterisk (*) following a version number represents a Microsoft certified driver. * Third-party trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. QLogic, QLogic Advanced Server Program, QLogic Control Suite, and Smart Load Balance are registered trademarks of QLogic Corporation. Feature Summary =============== - New ICEE feature implemented for all 578xx NDC and LOM - Support for RH7 and SLES12 Fixes: =============== - DRAC IP not pinging after successful Server import profile - Unable to update the QLogic 57810S Dual 10GE PCIe Standup Base-T CNA - Firmware update via Firmware Management Protocol caused RSOD with system mouse/keyboard activities on Remote Screen - QLC 10G 57810 bNDC boot retry count function not working on firmware T7.12 - Qlogic 57800 NDC: Need to suppress non supported attributes for ports 3 and 4 - Missing xuEFI tag for 1G and 10G link speed, and LnkSpeed - Request to Include VMware driver versions for Broadcom/ Qlogic 578XX familly in fw release notes. ******************************************************************************************* Currently known issues and limitations with QLogic NX2 drivers and devices. ******************************************************************************************* 1. BASP (the QLogic Advanced Server Program) will appear to be bound to all adapters in the system once loaded. This binding is normal and is used only to determine compatibility with BASP. The binding is not active, as indicated by the gray background of the selection box. This pre-binding will not interfere with bindings to other software protocols. 2. Customer may not see improvements with TOE when running web traffic with short-lived connections. When Webbench 5.0 uses short-lived connections to generate web traffic, TOE throughput is ~3% lower than non-TOE. CPU utilization is 100% in both cases. This is due to the fact that Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Scalable Networking Pack and QLogic drivers aren't fully optimized to handle uploading and offloading of short-lived http connections. TOE demonstrates performance advantages with long-lived connections. 3. The drivers have two parts, the VBD driver and the NDIS Client driver. This combination of drivers can be used for WinPE installations as long as the WinPE image is built with the /PnP option. WinPE images that are booted with the -miniNT option will only load the NDIS driver so network devices will not be functional in this environment. Use the -winpe option instead of the -minint option to boot WinPE when using devices or use the special RIS driver contained in the distribution package in the NX2_W2K3_8_(processor architecture)_RIS_Drivers directory of the unpacked files. For NX2 1G, please select the driver in the b06nd51 directory. For 10G, please select the driver in evnd51. 5. The first time diagnostics are run in a Windows environment on devices, the diagnostic driver must be installed. Windows will either automatically install the driver, in which case, no action is required by the user, or Windows will ask to be directed to the INF file for the diagnostic driver. If you are prompted to install the driver, please direct the Windows dialog to search for the driver in the directory where the QLogic driver package was unzipped. You may also search your hard drive for the file “bxdiag.inf.” If the file “bxdiag.inf” does not exist on your hard drive, you can run the QLogic Installer “setup.exe” from the zip package included on the DSA Service Mode CD, or from the zip package downloaded from www.support.dell.com. Running the installer will place the diagnostic driver on your hard drive and prepare it for automatic install the next time it is needed by the QLogic diagnostics. 6. When loading drivers through the PNP (Plug and Play) method, users can occasionally end up loading the RIS drivers accidentally. Generally this occurs when a user is asked to point to the proper driver for the device, and the user selects the folder containing the RIS drivers as the driver for the device. One indication that this had occurred is while loading the driver, a pop-up message should come up indicating that the driver is not digitally signed. Loading the RIS driver can result in network connections that fail to communicate across the network, as the NDIS driver will fail to bind to the devices. The most obvious way to identify the problem scenario is to open BACS and look at the network adapters displayed. Adapters that have the RIS drivers installed will be grayed out. Observing the driver loaded for the System Device portion of the QLogic devices will show that the RIS driver is loaded. Additionally, attempts to load the drivers using the installer will result in NDIS drivers displaying a yellow bang, as they are not able to bind to the VBD driver. The easiest way to correct the problem is to run add/remove programs on all installed QLogic devices, and then re-run the installer. 7. Windows Pre-installation Environment (WinPE for short) does not contain native support for 5708, 5709, 5716, 57710,57711 and 57712 devices on operating systems prior to Windows Server 2008 R2. In order to “inject” driver support into Windows PE, refer to the steps provided by Microsoft at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923834/en-us. QLogic 5708 Network Controller support is available as a native driver package in the Windows Server 2008 OS. 8. Network Teaming limitation with iSCSI offload: When iSCSI offload is enabled on QLogic NIC's or LOM's, only SLB teaming mode is supported. In order to create other teaming modes like 802.3ad and FEC/GEC, you will need to disable iSCSI offload. You can disable the iSCSI offload by a. launching the QLogic Control Suite. b. select the adapter you want to add to the team c. click the configurations tab, extend resource reservations. d. Uncheck iSCSI resource. 14. In order to ensure full functionality for the QLogic 10G adapter, a minimum of 512 MB of system memory is required per network interface. Optimal performance may be achieved when there is 4-6 GB of memory or more per network interface depending on the system capabilities. 16. Windows Server 2008 R2 is expected to support the ability to utilize the TCP Offload Engine (TOE) on child partitions for supported Guest operating systems. However, the stack supporting this feature was not fully matured upon the completion of this Windows drivers release. As a result, we do not recommend enabling this capability with these drivers until an update to resolve these issues are released. 17. iSCSI Boot with an adapter not configured with an iBFT during initial remote install of Windows Server 2008 R2 will result in a BSOD. Please refer to the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article that addresses this behavior: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/976042/en-us 18. Remote install of Windows Server 2008 R2 over non-offload path (MSFT stack) with new QLogic adapters, i.e. 57840, which are not supported by the inbox driver will fail. The problem is due to a conflict between the inbox (boot.wim) driver not able to support the new adapters. Although the installer provides a newer driver externally during the installation, the OS reverts back to the inbox. Alternatively, Microsoft's propose solution is to build a custom install DVD by extracting the boot.wim and overwrite the .INF and .SYS files with QLogic's newer driver set. Please read Microsoft's WAIK documentation for instruction process. Please refer to the workaround provided through the following link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/974072/en-us Note: Remote install of Windows Server 2008 R2 over QLogic iSCSI Offload path does not have an issue. 19. Receive Side Scaling (RSS) on TCP offloaded connections require a minimum of 8 gigabyte of RAM and only works for the 64-bit version of Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2. This feature is not supported in Windows Server 2003 due to a limitation in this operating system. RSS on non-offloaded connections, however, is supported for Windows 2003 SP2 and later. 20. After completing an installation in Windows server 2008 R2 on an iSCSI target, a system event may occur (source = VolMgr) where the description shows "The system could not successfully load the crash dump driver." The iSCSI crash dump driver must be enabled in the BACS3 application in order to suppress this message for the device being used for iSCSI boot. 21. The dual port 10Gb performance may not achieve full possible throughput for 57710 and 57711 devices, due to hardware limitations. 57712 does not have this hardware limitation and can achieve dual port 10G full throughput. In order to achieve optimal dual port performance on a QLogic 10G adapter, a user should use a PCIE Gen2 x8 slot and the latest operating systems like Windows 2008 R2, RHEL5.5 and SLES11sp1. 22. If flow control is set to "Auto" and Jumbo frames are used, 57710/57711 devices will not advertise flow control. In order to enable flow control advertisement, please set flow control to TX & RX enabled. 23. When the optional 57711 device is present in the PowerEdge R910, using the force downgrade option provide in previous installers is not supported. 24. Downloading a large file using the VFlash feature from an NFS connection may terminate unexpectedly after booting up into an operating system. Disabling the driver in the operating system will allow for the download to resume. 25. Please read Linux 'linux_readme.txt' regarding usage of NX2 driver package support. 26. W2K8 R2 Uninstall Chimney Offload State not being restored to the original value 27. An event appears in the Windows System Event Log after running the hardware diagnostics on some 5709/5708 LOMs of several systems on the first test. 28. Teaming backup and restore no longer defaults with BCG extension. Filename can be save as 'any' format and/or extension as end user would like to use. 30. 57810 SFP+ NIC WOL is only supported on 1 physical port, which is the port furthest away from the PCIe edge fingers (Port1). This board and requires 5.0W from 3.3V Aux for WOL operate correctly. 31. T7.2 linux driver set will not support FCoE for RH6.0. If FCoE support for 57712LRC is required for RH6.0, please use the software components from T6.4 CD 32. After the MFW is upgraded, FlexAddresses are lost on a PCIe reset. A complete AC power cycle is required 33. If SRIOV is enabled, system device may yellow bang after driver install. A system reboot is required. 34. BITS121261: SLES11sp3 remote installation with 1G port of the 57800 adapter fails to complete. Workaround: Enter the following syntax at the command prompt at initial installation. "bnx2x.num_vfs=0" 36. BITS156036: BFS fails with onboard S130 RAID controller mode enabled. The BFS implementation conflicts with Dell's S130/S310/S710 RAID controller. Recommendation is to disable RAID controller for Servers that are used for BFS. 39. BITS164170: BACS not functional with "unable to connect to localhost" message after driver upgrade 40. In a server running ESXi 5.5, a 57810 adapter, being connected to a MXL Flex IO module which is, in turn, connected to a Dell S5000 FC switch via NPG mode with two links, may fail to log back into the fabric, should a loss of connectivity occur on the active NPG link. The server must be rebooted in order to restore connectivity to the FC fabric. 41. A 57810 2 x 10GBase-T, 2 x 1GBase-T NDC may cause Event ID 15 (Source ebdrv) to be logged to the Windows event log. The solution is to disable DCBx, save settings, re-enable DCBx, and re-save settings using either CCM, or System Setup > Device Settings. 42. On an M620 server utilizing Virtual Address Management and I/O Identity Optimization, virtual attributes may not be reliably applied. If virtual attributes are not consistently applied during each boot, disable I/O Identity Optimization through the iDRAC GUI. 43. Device manager shows QLogic BCM57840 Ethernet instead of QLogic BCM57840 10gigabit Ethernet. Operation is not affected. 44. Under specific circumstances, a system containing a 57810 2 x 10GBase-T adapter and running Windows Server 2012 may require a reboot following initial driver installation before the 57810 adapter can establish link. 45. The QLogic Banner Message Timeout value cannot be set to 15 (no delay) through System Setup > Device Settings. To minimize the impact on boot time, set the Banner Message Timeout value to 1 second.