NVMe-oF Host Configuration for Oracle Linux 9.3 with ONTAP

10/29/2024 Contributors

NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF), including NVMe over Fibre Channel (NVMe/FC) and other transports, is supported with Oracle Linux (OL) 9.3 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.

The following support is available for the NVMe-oF host configuration for OL 9.3 with ONTAP:

Support for NVMe over TCP (NVMe/TCP) in addition to NVMe/FC. The NetApp plug-in in the native nvme-cli package displays ONTAP details for both NVMe/FC and NVMe/TCP namespaces.
Use of NVMe and SCSI co-existent traffic on the same host on a given host bus adapter (HBA), without the explicit dm-multipath settings to prevent claiming NVMe namespaces.

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

Features

Oracle Linux 9.3 has in-kernel NVMe multipath enabled for NVMe namespaces by default, therefore, there is no need for explicit settings.

Known limitations

SAN booting using the NVMe-oF protocol is currently not supported.

Validate software versions

You can use the following procedure to validate the minimum supported OL 9.3 software versions.

Steps

Install OL 9.3 GA on the server. After the installation is complete, verify that you are running the specified OL 9.3 GA kernel.
```
# uname -r
```
Example output:
```
5.15.0-200.131.27.el9uek.x86_64
```

Install the nvme-cli package:

# rpm -qa|grep nvme-cli

Example output:

nvme-cli-2.4-10.el9.x86_64

Install the libnvme package:

#rpm -qa|grep libnvme

Example output

libnvme-1.4-7.el9.x86_64

On the Oracle Linux 9.3 host, check the hostnqn string at /etc/nvme/hostnqn:

# cat /etc/nvme/hostnqn

Example output:

nqn.2014-08.org.nvmexpress:uuid:2831093d-fa7f-4714-a6bf-548796e82053

Verify that the hostnqn string matches the hostnqn string for the corresponding subsystem on the ONTAP array:

::> vserver nvme subsystem host show -vserver vs_ol_nvme

Example output:

Vserver     Subsystem          Host NQN
----------- --------------- ----------------------------------------------------------
vs_ol_nvme   nvme              nqn.2014-08.org.nvmexpress:uuid:2831093d-fa7f-4714-a6bf-548796e82053

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

Configure NVMe/FC

You can configure NVMe/FC for Broadcom/Emulex adapters or Marvell/Qlogic adapters.

Broadcom/Emulex

Steps

Verify that you are using the supported adapter model:

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

Example output:

LPe36002-M2
LPe36002-M2

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

Example output:

Emulex LightPulse LPe36002-M2 2-Port 64Gb Fibre Channel Adapter
Emulex LightPulse LPe36002-M2 2-Port 64Gb Fibre Channel Adapter

Verify that you are using the recommended Broadcom lpfc firmware and inbox driver:
```
# cat /sys/class/scsi_host/host*/fwrev
14.2.673.40, sli-4:2:c
14.2.673.40, sli-4:2:c
```
```
# cat /sys/module/lpfc/version
0:14.2.0.13
```
For the most current list of supported adapter driver and firmware versions, see the NetApp Interoperability Matrix Tool.

Verify that lpfc_enable_fc4_type is set to 3:

# cat /sys/module/lpfc/parameters/lpfc_enable_fc4_type
3

Verify that the initiator ports are up and running, and that you can see the target LIFs:

# cat /sys/class/fc_host/host*/port_name
0x100000620b3c089c
0x100000620b3c089d

# cat /sys/class/fc_host/host*/port_state
Online
Online

Show example output

# cat /sys/class/scsi_host/host*/nvme_info
NVME Initiator Enabled
XRI Dist lpfc0 Total 6144 IO 5894 ELS 250
NVME LPORT lpfc0 WWPN x100000620b3c089c WWNN x200000620b3c089c DID x062f00 ONLINE
NVME RPORT       WWPN x2019d039ea9ea480 WWNN x2018d039ea9ea480 DID x061b06 TARGET DISCSRVC ONLINE
NVME RPORT       WWPN x201cd039ea9ea480 WWNN x2018d039ea9ea480 DID x062706 TARGET DISCSRVC ONLINE

NVME Statistics
LS: Xmt 0000000f03 Cmpl 0000000efa Abort 0000004a
LS XMIT: Err 00000009  CMPL: xb 0000004a Err 0000004a
Total FCP Cmpl 00000000b9b3486a Issue 00000000b97ba0d2 OutIO ffffffffffc85868
abort 00000afc noxri 00000000 nondlp 00002e34 qdepth 00000000 wqerr 00000000 err 00000000
FCP CMPL: xb 0000138c Err 00014750

NVME Initiator Enabled
XRI Dist lpfc1 Total 6144 IO 5894 ELS 250
NVME LPORT lpfc1 WWPN x100000620b3c089d WWNN x200000620b3c089d DID x062400 ONLINE
NVME RPORT       WWPN x201ad039ea9ea480 WWNN x2018d039ea9ea480 DID x060206 TARGET DISCSRVC ONLINE
NVME RPORT       WWPN x201dd039ea9ea480 WWNN x2018d039ea9ea480 DID x061305 TARGET DISCSRVC ONLINE

NVME Statistics
LS: Xmt 0000000b40 Cmpl 0000000b40 Abort 00000000
LS XMIT: Err 00000000  CMPL: xb 00000000 Err 00000000
Total FCP Cmpl 00000000b9a9f03f Issue 00000000b96e622e OutIO ffffffffffc471ef
abort 0000090d noxri 00000000 nondlp 00003b3f qdepth 00000000 wqerr 00000000 err 00000000
FCP CMPL: xb 000010a5 Err 000147e4

Marvell/QLogic FC Adapter for NVMe/FC

The native inbox qla2xxx driver included in the OL 9.3 GA kernel has the latest upstream fixes. These fixes are essential for ONTAP support.

Steps

Verify that you are running the supported adapter driver and firmware versions:

# cat /sys/class/fc_host/host*/symbolic_name
QLE2872 FW:v9.14.02 DVR:v 10.02.09.100-k
QLE2872 FW:v9.14.02 DVR:v 10.02.09.100-k

Verify that ql2xnvmeenable is set. This enables the Marvell adapter to function as an NVMe/FC initiator:
```
# cat /sys/module/qla2xxx/parameters/ql2xnvmeenable
1
```

Enable 1MB I/O size (Optional)

ONTAP reports an MDTS (Max Data Transfer Size) 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 1 MB for a Broadcom NVMe/FC host, you must increase the lpfc value of the lpfc_sg_seg_cnt parameter to 256 from the default value of 64.

The following 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

Example output

options lpfc lpfc_sg_seg_cnt=256

Run the dracut -f command, and reboot the host:
Verify that lpfc_sg_seg_cnt is 256:
```
cat /sys/module/lpfc/parameters/lpfc_sg_seg_cnt
```
The expected value is 256.

Configure NVMe/TCP

NVMe/TCP does not have an auto-connect functionality. Therefore, you need to perform the NVMe/TCP connect or connect-all functionality manually to discover the NVMe/TCP subsystems and namespaces. You can use the following procedure to configure NVMe/TCP.

Steps

Verify 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

# nvme discover -t tcp -w 192.168.166.4 -a 192.168.166.56

Discovery Log Number of Records 4, Generation counter 10
=====Discovery Log Entry 0======
trtype:  tcp
adrfam:  ipv4
subtype: current discovery subsystem
treq:    not specified
portid:  2
trsvcid: 8009
subnqn:  nqn.1992-08.com.netapp:sn.337a0392d58011ee9764d039eab0dadd:discovery
traddr:  192.168.165.56
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.337a0392d58011ee9764d039eab0dadd:discovery
traddr:  192.168.166.56
eflags:  explicit discovery connections, duplicate discovery information
sectype: none
=====Discovery Log Entry 2======
trtype:  tcp
adrfam:  ipv4
subtype: nvme subsystem
treq:    not specified
portid:  2
trsvcid: 4420
subnqn:  nqn.1992-08.com.netapp:sn.337a0392d58011ee9764d039eab0dadd:subsystem.rhel_95
traddr:  192.168.165.56
eflags:  none
sectype: none
..........

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

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

Example output:

# nvme discover -t tcp -w 192.168.166.4 -a 192.168.166.56
# nvme discover -t tcp -w 192.168.165.3 -a 192.168.165.56

Run the nvme connect-all command across all the supported NVMe/TCP initiator-target LIFs across the nodes:
```
nvme connect-all -t tcp -w host-traddr -a traddr -l <ctrl_loss_timeout_in_seconds>
```
Example output:
```
# nvme connect-all -t tcp -w 192.168.166.4 -a 192.168.166.56 -l -1
# nvme connect-all -t tcp -w 192.168.165.3 -a 192.168.165.56 -l -1
```
NetApp recommends setting the ctrl-loss-tmo option to -1 so that the NVMe/TCP initiator attempts to reconnect indefinitely in the event of a path loss.

Validate NVMe-oF

You can use the following procedure to validate NVMe-oF.

Steps

Verify the following NVMe/FC settings on the OL 9.3 host:

# cat /sys/module/nvme_core/parameters/multipath
Y

# cat /sys/class/nvme-subsystem/nvme-subsys*/model
NetApp ONTAP Controller
NetApp ONTAP Controller

# cat /sys/class/nvme-subsystem/nvme-subsys*/iopolicy
round-robin
round-robin

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

# nvme list

Example output:

Node         SN                   Model
---------------------------------------------------------
/dev/nvme0n1 814vWBNRwf9HAAAAAAAB NetApp ONTAP Controller
/dev/nvme0n2 814vWBNRwf9HAAAAAAAB NetApp ONTAP Controller
/dev/nvme0n3 814vWBNRwf9HAAAAAAAB NetApp ONTAP Controller


Namespace Usage    Format             FW             Rev
-----------------------------------------------------------
1                 21.47 GB / 21.47 GB  4 KiB + 0 B   FFFFFFFF
2                 21.47 GB / 21.47 GB  4 KiB + 0 B  FFFFFFFF
3	                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

Example output:

nvme-subsys5 - NQN=nqn.1992-08.com.netapp:sn.4aa0fa76c92c11eeb301d039eab0dadd:subsystem.rhel_213
\
 +- nvme3 fc traddr=nn-0x2018d039ea9ea480:pn-0x201dd039ea9ea480,host_traddr=nn-0x200000620b3c089d:pn-0x100000620b3c089d live non-optimized
 +- nvme4 fc traddr=nn-0x2018d039ea9ea480:pn-0x201cd039ea9ea480,host_traddr=nn-0x200000620b3c089c:pn-0x100000620b3c089c live non-optimized
 +- nvme6 fc traddr=nn-0x2018d039ea9ea480:pn-0x2019d039ea9ea480,host_traddr=nn-0x200000620b3c089c:pn-0x100000620b3c089c live optimized
 +- nvme7 fc traddr=nn-0x2018d039ea9ea480:pn-0x201ad039ea9ea480,host_traddr=nn-0x200000620b3c089d:pn-0x100000620b3c089d live optimized

NVMe/TCP

nvme list-subsys /dev/nvme1n22

Example output

nvme-subsys1 - NQN=nqn.1992-08.com.netapp:sn.337a0392d58011ee9764d039eab0dadd:subsystem.rhel_95
\
 +- nvme2 tcp traddr=192.168.166.56,trsvcid=4420,host_traddr=192.168.166.4,src_addr=192.168.166.4 live optimized
 +- nvme3 tcp traddr=192.168.165.56,trsvcid=4420,host_traddr=192.168.165.3,src_addr=192.168.165.3 live non-optimized

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

Column

# nvme netapp ontapdevices -o column

Example output:

Device        Vserver   Namespace Path
----------------------- ------------------------------
/dev/nvme5n6     vs_nvme175                /vol/vol6/ns
/dev/nvme5n7     vs_nvme175                /vol/vol7/ns
/dev/nvme5n8     vs_nvme175                /vol/vol8/ns




NSID       UUID                                   Size
------------------------------------------------------------
6          72b887b1-5fb6-47b8-be0b-33326e2542e2   21.47GB
7          04bf9f6e-9031-40ea-99c7-a1a61b2d7d08   21.47GB
8          264823b1-8e03-4155-80dd-e904237014a4   21.47GB

JSON

# nvme netapp ontapdevices -o json

Example output

{
  "ONTAPdevices":[
    {
      "Device":"/dev/nvme5n1",
      "Vserver":"vs_nvme175",
      "Namespace_Path":"/vol/vol1/ns",
      "NSID":1,
      "UUID":"d4791955-07c9-44fc-b41c-d1c39d3d9b5b",
      "Size":"21.47GB",
      "LBA_Data_Size":4096,
      "Namespace_Size":5242880
    },
    {
      "Device":"/dev/nvme5n10",
      "Vserver":"vs_nvme175",
      "Namespace_Path":"/vol/vol10/ns",
      "NSID":10,
      "UUID":"f3a4ce94-bcc5-4ff0-9e52-e59030bbc97f",
      "Size":"21.47GB",
      "LBA_Data_Size":4096,
      "Namespace_Size":5242880
    },
    {
      "Device":"/dev/nvme5n11",
      "Vserver":"vs_nvme175",
      "Namespace_Path":"/vol/vol11/ns",
      "NSID":11,
      "UUID":"0bf171d2-51f7-4a00-8f6a-0ea2190885a2",
      "Size":"21.47GB",
      "LBA_Data_Size":4096,
      "Namespace_Size":5242880
    },
  ]
}

Known issues

There are no known issues for the Oracle Linux 9.3 with ONTAP release.

NVMe-oF Host Configuration for Oracle Linux 9.3 with ONTAP

Creating your file...

Features

Known limitations

Validate software versions

Configure NVMe/FC

Enable 1MB I/O size (Optional)

Configure NVMe/TCP

Validate NVMe-oF

Known issues