Configure Ubuntu 22.04 for NVMe-oF with ONTAP storage

03/10/2026 Contributors

NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF), including NVMe over Fibre Channel (NVMe/FC) and other transports, is supported with Ubuntu 22.04 with Asymmetric Namespace Access (ANA). In NVMe-oF environments, ANA is the equivalent of ALUA multipathing in iSCSI and FC environments and is implemented with in-kernel NVMe multipath.

Learn how to configure NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) hosts for Ubuntu 22.04. For more support and feature information, see Ubuntu ONTAP support and features.

NVMe-oF with Ubuntu 22.04 has the following known limitations:

SAN booting using the NVMe-oF protocol is currently not supported for Ubuntu 22.04 with ONTAP.

For additional details on supported configurations, see the Interoperability Matrix Tool.

Step 1: Install Ubuntu and NVMe software and verify your configuration

To configure your host for NVMe-oF you need to install the host and NVMe software packages, enable multipathing, and verify your host NQN configuration.

Steps

Install Ubuntu 22.04 on the server. After the installation is complete, verify that you are running the specified Ubuntu 22.04 kernel:
```
# uname -r
```
Example Ubuntu kernel version:
```
5.15.0-101-generic
```
Install the nvme-cli package:
```
# apt list | grep nvme
```
The following example shows an nvme-cli package version:
```
nvme-cli/jammy-updates,now 1.16-3ubuntu0.1 amd64
```
On the Ubuntu 22.04 host, check the hostnqn string at /etc/nvme/hostnqn:
```
# cat /etc/nvme/hostnqn
```
The following example shows an hostnqn version:
```
nqn.2014-08.org.nvmexpress:uuid:063axxxx-438a-xxxx-b9b4-95axxxx6d041
```

On the ONTAP system, verify that the hostnqn string from /etc/nvme/hostnqn matches the hostnqn string for the corresponding subsystem on the ONTAP storage system:

::> vserver nvme subsystem host show -vserver vs_106_fc_nvme

Show example

Vserver     Subsystem          Host NQN
----------- --------------- ----------------------------------------------------------
vs_106_fc_nvme ub_106 nqn.2014-08.org.nvmexpress:uuid:c047xxxx-e91e-xxxx-9995-ba4xxxx14631

If the hostnqn strings do not match, use the vserver modify command to update the hostnqn string on your corresponding ONTAP storage system subsystem to match the hostnqn string from /etc/nvme/hostnqn on the host.

Step 2: Configure NVMe/FC and NVMe/TCP

Configure NVMe/FC for Broadcom/Emulex or Marvell/Qlogic adapters, or configure NVMe/TCP using manual discovery and connect operations.

Broadcom/Emulex

Configure NVMe/FC for a Broadcom/Emulex adapter.

Steps

Verify that you are using the supported adapter model:

Display the model names:

cat /sys/class/scsi_host/host*/modelname

You should see the following output:

LPe36002-M64
LPe36002-M64

Display the model descriptions:

cat /sys/class/scsi_host/host*/modeldesc

You should see output similar to the following example:

Emulex LPe36002-M64 2-Port 64Gb Fibre Channel Adapter
Emulex LPe36002-M64 2-Port 64Gb Fibre Channel Adapter

Verify that you are using the recommended Broadcom lpfc firmware and inbox driver.
1. Display the firmware version:
  cat /sys/class/scsi_host/host*/fwrev
  The command returns the firmware versions:
  14.2.673.40, sli-4:6:d 14.2.673.40, sli-4:6:d
2. Display the inbox driver version:
  cat /sys/module/lpfc/version
  The following example shows a driver version:
  0: 14.0.0.4
  For the current list of supported adapter driver and firmware versions, see the Interoperability Matrix Tool.

Verify that lpfc_enable_fc4_type is set to 3:

cat /sys/module/lpfc/parameters/lpfc_enable_fc4_type

Verify that you can view your initiator ports:
```
cat /sys/class/fc_host/host*/port_name
```
You should see output similar to:
```
0x100000109bf0447c
0x100000109bf0447b
```
Verify that your initiator ports are online:
```
cat /sys/class/fc_host/host*/port_state
```
You should see the following output:
```
Online
Online
```

Verify that the NVMe/FC initiator ports are enabled and that the target ports are visible:

cat /sys/class/scsi_host/host*/nvme_info

Show example output

NVME Initiator Enabled
XRI Dist lpfc1 Total 6144 IO 5894 ELS 250
NVME LPORT lpfc1 WWPN x100000109bf0447c WWNN x200000109bf0447c DID x022300 ONLINE
NVME RPORT       WWPN x200cd039eaa8138b WWNN x200ad039eaa8138b DID x021509 TARGET DISCSRVC ONLINE
NVME RPORT       WWPN x2010d039eaa8138b WWNN x200ad039eaa8138b DID x021108 TARGET DISCSRVC ONLINE

NVME Statistics
LS: Xmt 000000000e Cmpl 000000000e Abort 00000000
LS XMIT: Err 00000000  CMPL: xb 00000000 Err 00000000
Total FCP Cmpl 0000000000005238 Issue 000000000000523a OutIO 0000000000000002
        abort 00000000 noxri 00000000 nondlp 00000000 qdepth 00000000 wqerr 00000000 err 00000000
FCP CMPL: xb 00000000 Err 00000000

NVME Initiator Enabled
XRI Dist lpfc0 Total 6144 IO 5894 ELS 250
NVME LPORT lpfc0 WWPN x100000109bf0447b WWNN x200000109bf0447b DID x022600 ONLINE
NVME RPORT       WWPN x200bd039eaa8138b WWNN x200ad039eaa8138b DID x021409 TARGET DISCSRVC ONLINE
NVME RPORT       WWPN x200fd039eaa8138b WWNN x200ad039eaa8138b DID x021008 TARGET DISCSRVC ONLINE

NVME Statistics
LS: Xmt 000000000e Cmpl 000000000e Abort 00000000
LS XMIT: Err 00000000  CMPL: xb 00000000 Err 00000000
Total FCP Cmpl 000000000000523c Issue 000000000000523e OutIO 0000000000000002
        abort 00000000 noxri 00000000 nondlp 00000000 qdepth 00000000 wqerr 00000000 err 00000000
FCP CMPL: xb 00000000 Err 00000000

Marvell/QLogic

The native inbox qla2xxx driver included in the Ubuntu 22.04 GA kernel has the latest upstream fixes. These fixes are essential for ONTAP support.

Configure NVMe/FC for a Marvell/QLogic adapter.

Steps

Verify that you are running the supported adapter driver and firmware versions:
```
# cat /sys/class/fc_host/host*/symbolic_name
```
The following example shows driver and firmware versions:
```
QLE2872 FW: v9.14.02 DVR: v10.02.06.200-k
QLE2872 FW: v9.14.02 DVR: v10.02.06.200-k
```
Verify that ql2xnvmeenable is set. This enables the Marvell adapter to function as an NVMe/FC initiator:
```
cat /sys/module/qla2xxx/parameters/ql2xnvmeenable
```
The expected output is 1.

NVMe/TCP

NVMe/TCP does not have auto-connect functionality. Instead, you can discover the NVMe/TCP subsystems and namespaces by performing the NVMe/TCP connect or connect-all operations manually.

If a path goes down and is not reinstated within the default time out period of 10 minutes, NVMe/TCP cannot automatically reconnect. To prevent a time out, set the retry period for failover events to at least 30 minutes.

Steps

Check that the initiator port can fetch the discovery log page data across the supported NVMe/TCP LIFs:

nvme discover -t tcp -w host-traddr -a traddr

Show example output

#nvme discover -t tcp -w 10.10.11.47-a 10.10.10.122
Discovery Log Number of Records 8, Generation counter 10
=====Discovery Log Entry 0======
trtype:  tcp
adrfam:  ipv4
subtype: current discovery subsystem
treq:    not specified
portid:  0
trsvcid: 8009
subnqn:  nqn.1992-08.com.netapp:sn.bbfb4ee8dfb611edbd07d039ea165590:discovery
traddr:  10.10.10.122
eflags:  explicit discovery connections, duplicate discovery information
sectype: none
=====Discovery Log Entry 1======
trtype:  tcp
adrfam:  ipv4
subtype: current discovery subsystem
treq:    not specified
portid:  1
trsvcid: 8009
subnqn:  nqn.1992 08.com.netapp:sn.bbfb4ee8dfb611edbd07d039ea165590:discovery
traddr:  10.10.10.124
eflags:  explicit discovery connections, duplicate discovery information
sectype: none
=====Discovery Log Entry 2======
trtype:  tcp

Verify that the other NVMe/TCP initiator-target LIF combinations are able to successfully fetch discovery log page data:

nvme discover -t tcp -w host-traddr -a traddr

Show example output

#nvme discover -t tcp -w 10.10.10.47 -a 10.10.10.122
#nvme discover -t tcp -w 10.10.10.47 -a 10.10.10.124
#nvme discover -t tcp -w 10.10.11.47 -a 10.10.11.122
#nvme discover -t tcp -w 10.10.11.47 -a 10.10.11.

Run the nvme connect-all command across all the supported NVMe/TCP initiator-target LIFs across the nodes, and set the controller loss timeout period for at least 30 minutes or 1800 seconds:

nvme connect-all -t tcp -w host-traddr -a traddr -l 1800

Show example output

#nvme	connect-all	-t	tcp	-w	10.10.10.47	-a	10.10.10.122 -l	1800
#nvme	connect-all	-t	tcp	-w	10.10.10.47	-a	10.10.10.124 -l	1800
#nvme	connect-all	-t	tcp	-w	10.10.11.47	-a	10.10.11.122 -l	1800
#nvme	connect-all	-t	tcp	-w	10.10.11.47	-a	10.10.11.124 -l	1800

Step 3: Optionally, enable 1MB I/O for NVMe/FC

ONTAP reports a Max Data Transfer Size (MDTS) of 8 in the Identify Controller data. This means the maximum I/O request size can be up to 1MB. To issue I/O requests of size 1MB for a Broadcom NVMe/FC host, you should increase the lpfc value of the lpfc_sg_seg_cnt parameter to 256 from the default value of 64.

These steps don't apply to Qlogic NVMe/FC hosts.

Steps

Set the lpfc_sg_seg_cnt parameter to 256:
```
cat /etc/modprobe.d/lpfc.conf
```
You should see an output similar to the following example:
```
options lpfc lpfc_sg_seg_cnt=256
```
Run the dracut -f command, and reboot the host.

Verify that the value for lpfc_sg_seg_cnt is 256:

cat /sys/module/lpfc/parameters/lpfc_sg_seg_cnt

Step 4: Verify multipathing configuration

Verify that the in-kernel NVMe multipath status, ANA status, and ONTAP namespaces are correct for the NVMe-oF configuration.

Steps

Verify that the in-kernel NVMe multipath is enabled:
```
# cat /sys/module/nvme_core/parameters/multipath
```
The expected output is "Y".
Verify that the appropriate NVMe-oF settings (such as, model set to NetApp ONTAP Controller and load balancing iopolicy set to round-robin) for the respective ONTAP namespaces correctly reflect on the host:
```
# cat /sys/class/nvme-subsystem/nvme-subsys*/model
```
You should see the following output:
```
NetApp ONTAP Controller
NetApp ONTAP Controller
```
1. Display the policy:
  # cat /sys/class/nvme-subsystem/nvme-subsys*/iopolicy
  You should see the following output:
  round-robin round-robin

Verify that the namespaces are created and correctly discovered on the host:

# nvme list

Show example output

Node         SN                   Model
---------------------------------------------------------
/dev/nvme0n1 81CZ5BQuUNfGAAAAAAAB	NetApp ONTAP Controller


Namespace Usage    Format             FW             Rev
-----------------------------------------------------------
1                 21.47 GB / 21.47 GB	4 KiB + 0 B   FFFFFFFF

Verify that the controller state of each path is live and has the correct ANA status:

NVMe/FC

# nvme list-subsys /dev/nvme0n1

Show example output

nvme-subsys4 - NQN=nqn.1992-08.com.netapp:sn.8763d311b2ac11ed950ed039ea951c46:subsystem. ub_106 \
+- nvme1 fc traddr=nn-0x20a6d039ea954d17:pn-0x20a7d039ea954d17,host_traddr=nn-0x200000109b1b95ef:pn-0x100000109b1b95ef live optimized
+- nvme2 fc traddr=nn-0x20a6d039ea954d17:pn-0x20a8d039ea954d17,host_traddr=nn-0x200000109b1b95f0:pn-0x100000109b1b95f0 live optimized
+- nvme3 fc traddr=nn-0x20a6d039ea954d17:pn-0x20aad039ea954d17,host_traddr=nn-0x200000109b1b95f0:pn-0x100000109b1b95f0 live non-optimized
+- nvme5 fc traddr=nn-0x20a6d039ea954d17:pn-0x20a9d039ea954d17,host_traddr=nn-0x200000109b1b95ef:pn-0x100000109b1b95ef live non-optimized

NVMe/TCP

# nvme list-subsys /dev/nvme1n1

Show example output

nvme-subsys1 - NQN=nqn.1992- 08.com.netapp:sn. bbfb4ee8dfb611edbd07d039ea165590:subsystem.rhel_tcp_95
+- nvme1 tcp traddr=10.10.10.122,trsvcid=4420,host_traddr=10.10.10.47,src_addr=10.10.10.47 live
+- nvme2 tcp traddr=10.10.10.124,trsvcid=4420,host_traddr=10.10.10.47,src_addr=10.10.10.47 live
+- nvme3 tcp traddr=10.10.11.122,trsvcid=4420,host_traddr=10.10.11.47,src_addr=10.10.11.47 live
+- nvme4 tcp traddr=10.10.11.124,trsvcid=4420,host_traddr=10.10.11.47,src_addr=10.10.11.47 live

Verify that the NetApp plug-in displays the correct values for each ONTAP namespace device:

Column

# nvme netapp ontapdevices -o column

Show example output

Device        Vserver   Namespace Path
----------------------- ------------------------------
/dev/nvme0n1 co_iscsi_tcp_ubuntu /vol/vol1/ns1



NSID       UUID                                   Size
------------------------------------------------------------
1          79c2c569-b7fa-42d5-b870-d9d6d7e5fa84	21.47GB

JSON

# nvme netapp ontapdevices -o json

Show example output

{

"ONTAPdevices" : [
{

"Device" : "/dev/nvme0n1",
"Vserver" : "co_iscsi_tcp_ubuntu",
"Namespace_Path" : "/vol/nvmevol1/ns1",
"NSID" : 1,
"UUID" : "79c2c569-b7fa-42d5-b870-d9d6d7e5fa84",
"Size" : "21.47GB",
"LBA_Data_Size" : 4096,
"Namespace_Size" : 5242880
},

]
}

Step 5: Review the known issues

The NVMe-oF host configuration for Ubuntu 22.04 with ONTAP release has the following known issue:

NetApp Bug ID	Title	Description
CONTAPEXT-2037	Ubuntu 22.04 NVMe-oF hosts create duplicate Persistent Discovery Controllers	On NVMe-oF hosts, you can use the "nvme discover -p" command to create Persistent Discovery Controllers (PDCs). This command should only create one PDC for each initiator-target combination. However, if you are running Ubuntu 22.04 on an NVMe-oF host, a duplicate PDC is created each time "nvme discover -p" is executed. This leads to unnecessary usage of resources on both the host and the target.

NetApp Bug ID

Title

Description

CONTAPEXT-2037

Ubuntu 22.04 NVMe-oF hosts create duplicate Persistent Discovery Controllers

On NVMe-oF hosts, you can use the "nvme discover -p" command to create Persistent Discovery Controllers (PDCs). This command should only create one PDC for each initiator-target combination. However, if you are running Ubuntu 22.04 on an NVMe-oF host, a duplicate PDC is created each time "nvme discover -p" is executed. This leads to unnecessary usage of resources on both the host and the target.

Configure Ubuntu 22.04 for NVMe-oF with ONTAP storage

Creating your file...

Step 1: Install Ubuntu and NVMe software and verify your configuration

Step 2: Configure NVMe/FC and NVMe/TCP

Step 3: Optionally, enable 1MB I/O for NVMe/FC

Step 4: Verify multipathing configuration

Step 5: Review the known issues