SAN hosts and cloud clients manuals ( CA08872-021 )

Configure Oracle Linux 8x with NVMe-oF for ONTAP storage

Oracle Linux hosts support the NVMe over Fibre Channel (NVMe/FC) and NVMe over TCP (NVMe/TCP) protocols with Asymmetric Namespace Access (ANA). ANA provides multipathing functionality equivalent to asymmetric logical unit access (ALUA) in iSCSI and FCP environments.

Learn how to configure NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) hosts for Oracle Linux 8x. For more support and feature information, see Oracle Linux ONTAP support and features.

NVMe-oF with Oracle Linux 8x has the following known limitations:

SAN booting using the NVMe-oF protocol is not supported.
For Oracle Linux 8.2 and earlier, native NVMe/FC auto-connect scripts are not available in the nvme-cli package. Use the HBA vendor provided external auto-connect scripts.
For Oracle Linux 8.2 and earlier, round-robin load balancing is not enabled by default for NVMe multipathing. To enable this functionality, go to the step for writing a udev rule.

Step 1: Install Oracle Linux and NVMe software and verify your configuration

Use the following procedure to validate the minimum supported Oracle Linux 8x software versions.

Steps

Install Oracle Linux 8x on the server. After the installation is complete, verify that you are running the specified Oracle Linux 8x kernel.
```
uname -r
```
Example Oracle Linux kernel version:
```
5.15.0-206.153.7.1.el8uek.x86_64
```
Install the nvme-cli package:
```
rpm -qa|grep nvme-cli
```
The following example shows an nvme-cli package version:
```
nvme-cli-1.16-9.el8.x86_64
```

For Oracle Linux 8.2 and earlier, add the following string as a separate udev rule for /lib/udev/rules.d/71-nvme-iopolicy-netapp-ONTAP.rules. This enables round-robin load balancing for NVMe multipath.

cat /lib/udev/rules.d/71-nvme-iopolicy-netapp-ONTAP.rules
Enable round-robin for NetApp ONTAP
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEMS=="nvme-subsystem", ATTRS{model}=="NetApp ONTAP Controller", ATTR{iopolicy}="round-robin"

On the Oracle Linux 8x 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:edd38060-00f7-47aa-a9dc-4d8ae0cd969a
```

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

vserver nvme subsystem host show -vserver vs_coexistence_LPE36002

Show example

Vserver Subsystem Priority  Host NQN
------- --------- --------  ------------------------------------------------
vs_coexistence_LPE36002
        nvme
                  regular   nqn.2014-08.org.nvmexpress:uuid:edd38060-00f7-47aa-a9dc-4d8ae0cd969a
        nvme1
                  regular   nqn.2014-08.org.nvmexpress:uuid:edd38060-00f7-47aa-a9dc-4d8ae0cd969a
        nvme2
                  regular   nqn.2014-08.org.nvmexpress:uuid:edd38060-00f7-47aa-a9dc-4d8ae0cd969a
        nvme3
                  regular   nqn.2014-08.org.nvmexpress:uuid:edd38060-00f7-47aa-a9dc-4d8ae0cd969a
4 entries were displayed.

If the hostnqn strings don’t match, 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.

Optionally, to run both NVMe and SCSI co-existent traffic on the same host, our recommends using the in-kernel NVMe multipath for ONTAP namespaces and dm-multipath for ONTAP LUNs respectively. This should exclude the ONTAP namespaces from dm-multipath and prevent dm-multipath from claiming the ONTAP namespace devices.
1. Add the enable_foreign setting to the /etc/multipath.conf file.
  cat /etc/multipath.conf defaults { enable_foreign NONE }
2. Restart the multipathd daemon to apply the new setting.
  systemctl restart multipathd

Step 2: Configure NVMe/FC and NVMe/TCP

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

FC - Broadcom/Emulex

Configure NVMe/FC for a Broadcom/Emulex adapter.

Verify that you’re 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 an 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 following example shows firmware versions:
  14.4.317.10, sli-4:6:d 14.4.317.10, sli-4:6:d
2. Display the inbox driver version:
  cat /sys/module/lpfc/version
  The following example shows a driver version:
  0:14.2.0.13

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>
```
The following example shows port identities:
```
0x100000109bf0449c
0x100000109bf0449d
```
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

NVME Initiator Enabled
XRI Dist lpfc0 Total 6144 IO 5894 ELS 250
NVME LPORT lpfc0 WWPN x100000109bf0449c WWNN x200000109bf0449c DID x061500 ONLINE
NVME RPORT       WWPN x200bd039eab31e9c WWNN x2005d039eab31e9c DID x020e06 TARGET DISCSRVC ONLINE
NVME RPORT       WWPN x2006d039eab31e9c WWNN x2005d039eab31e9c DID x020a0a TARGET DISCSRVC ONLINE
NVME Statistics
LS: Xmt 000000002c Cmpl 000000002c Abort 00000000
LS XMIT: Err 00000000  CMPL: xb 00000000 Err 00000000
Total FCP Cmpl 000000000008ffe8 Issue 000000000008ffb9 OutIO ffffffffffffffd1
        abort 0000000c noxri 00000000 nondlp 00000000 qdepth 00000000 wqerr 00000000 err 00000000
FCP CMPL: xb 0000000c Err 0000000c
NVME Initiator Enabled
XRI Dist lpfc1 Total 6144 IO 5894 ELS 250
NVME LPORT lpfc1 WWPN x100000109bf0449d WWNN x200000109bf0449d DID x062d00 ONLINE
NVME RPORT       WWPN x201fd039eab31e9c WWNN x2005d039eab31e9c DID x02090a TARGET DISCSRVC ONLINE
NVME RPORT       WWPN x200cd039eab31e9c WWNN x2005d039eab31e9c DID x020d06 TARGET DISCSRVC ONLINE
NVME Statistics
LS: Xmt 0000000041 Cmpl 0000000041 Abort 00000000
LS XMIT: Err 00000000  CMPL: xb 00000000 Err 00000000
Total FCP Cmpl 00000000000936bf Issue 000000000009369a OutIO ffffffffffffffdb
        abort 00000016 noxri 00000000 nondlp 00000000 qdepth 00000000 wqerr 00000000 err 00000000
FCP CMPL: xb 00000016 Err 00000016

FC - Marvell/QLogic

Configure NVMe/FC for a Marvell/QLogic adapter.

Verify that you are running the supported adapter driver and firmware versions:
```
cat /sys/class/fc_host/host*/symbolic_name
```
The follow example shows driver and firware versions:
```
QLE2772 FW:v9.15.00 DVR:v10.02.09.100-k
QLE2772 FW:v9.15.00 DVR:v10.02.09.100-k
```
Verify that ql2xnvmeenable is set. This enables the Marvell adapter to function as an NVMe/FC initiator:
```
cat /sys/module/qla2xxx/parameters/ql2xnvmeenable
```
The expected output is 1.

TCP

The NVMe/TCP protocol doesn’t support the auto-connect operation. Instead, you can discover the NVMe/TCP subsystems and namespaces by performing the NVMe/TCP connect or connect-all operations manually.

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 192.168.6.1 -a 192.168.6.24 Discovery Log Number of Records 20, Generation counter 45
=====Discovery Log Entry 0======
trtype:  tcp
adrfam:  ipv4
subtype: unrecognized
treq:    not specified
portid:  6
trsvcid: 8009
subnqn:  nqn.1992-08.com.netapp:sn.e6c438e66ac211ef9ab8d039eab31e9d:discovery
traddr:  192.168.6.25
sectype: none
=====Discovery Log Entry 1======
trtype:  tcp
adrfam:  ipv4
subtype: unrecognized
treq:    not specified
portid:  1
trsvcid: 8009
subnqn:  nqn.1992-08.com.netapp:sn.e6c438e66ac211ef9ab8d039eab31e9d:discovery
traddr:  192.168.5.24
sectype: none
=====Discovery Log Entry 2======
trtype:  tcp
adrfam:  ipv4
subtype: unrecognized
treq:    not specified
portid:  4
trsvcid: 8009
subnqn:  nqn.1992-08.com.netapp:sn.e6c438e66ac211ef9ab8d039eab31e9d:discovery
traddr:  192.168.6.24
sectype: none
=====Discovery Log Entry 3======
trtype:  tcp
adrfam:  ipv4
subtype: unrecognized
treq:    not specified
portid:  2
trsvcid: 8009
subnqn:  nqn.1992-08.com.netapp:sn.e6c438e66ac211ef9ab8d039eab31e9d:discovery
traddr:  192.168.5.25
sectype: none
=====Discovery Log Entry 4======
trtype:  tcp
adrfam:  ipv4
subtype: nvme subsystem
treq:    not specified
portid:  6
trsvcid: 4420
subnqn:  nqn.1992-08.com.netapp:sn.e6c438e66ac211ef9ab8d039eab31e9d:subsystem.nvme_tcp_4
traddr:  192.168.6.25
sectype: none
=====Discovery Log Entry 5======
trtype:  tcp
adrfam:  ipv4
subtype: nvme subsystem
treq:    not specified
portid:  1
trsvcid: 4420
subnqn:  nqn.1992-08.com.netapp:sn.e6c438e66ac211ef9ab8d039eab31e9d:subsystem.nvme_tcp_4
..........

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

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

Show example

nvme discover -t tcp -w 192.168.6.1 -a 192.168.6.24
nvme discover -t tcp -w 192.168.6.1 -a 192.168.6.25
nvme discover -t tcp -w 192.168.5.1 -a 192.168.5.24
nvme discover -t tcp -w 192.168.5.1 -a 192.168.5.25

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>

Show example

nvme	connect-all	-t	tcp	-w	192.168.5.1	-a	192.168.5.24	-l -1
nvme	connect-all	-t	tcp	-w	192.168.5.1	-a	192.168.5.25	-l -1
nvme	connect-all	-t	tcp	-w	192.168.6.1	-a	192.168.6.24	-l -1
nvme	connect-all	-t	tcp	-w	192.168.6.1	-a	192.168.6.25	-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.

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

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 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 the 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
```
You should see the following output:
```
Y
```
Verify that the appropriate NVMe-oF settings (such as, model set to ONTAP Controller and load balancing iopolicy set to round-robin) for the respective ONTAP namespaces correctly reflect on the host:
1. Display the subsystems:
  cat /sys/class/nvme-subsystem/nvme-subsys*/model
  You should see the following output:
  NetApp ONTAP Controller NetApp ONTAP Controller
2. 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

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                 85.90 GB / 85.90 GB  4 KiB + 0 B   FFFFFFFF
2                 85.90 GB / 85.90 GB  24 KiB + 0 B  FFFFFFFF
3	                85.90 GB / 85.90 GB  4 KiB + 0 B   FFFFFFFF

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

nvme list-subsys /dev/nvme0n1

Show NVMe/FC example

nvme-subsys0 - NQN=nqn.1992- 08.com.netapp: 4b4d82566aab11ef9ab8d039eab31e9d:subsystem.nvme\
+-  nvme1 fc traddr=nn-0x2038d039eab31e9c:pn-0x203ad039eab31e9c host_traddr=nn-0x200034800d756a89:pn-0x210034800d756a89 live optimized
+-  nvme2 fc traddr=nn-0x2038d039eab31e9c:pn-0x203cd039eab31e9c host_traddr=nn-0x200034800d756a88:pn-0x210034800d756a88 live optimized
+- nvme3 fc traddr=nn-0x2038d039eab31e9c:pn-0x203ed039eab31e9c host_traddr=nn-0x200034800d756a89:pn-0x210034800d756a89 live non-optimized
+-  nvme7 fc traddr=nn-0x2038d039eab31e9c:pn-0x2039d039eab31e9c host_traddr=nn-0x200034800d756a88:pn-0x210034800d756a88 live non-optimized

Show NVMe/TCP example

nvme-subsys0 - NQN=nqn.1992- 08.com.netapp: sn.e6c438e66ac211ef9ab8d039eab31e9d:subsystem.nvme_tcp_4
\
+- nvme1 tcp traddr=192.168.5.25 trsvcid=4420 host_traddr=192.168.5.1 src_addr=192.168.5.1 live optimized
+- nvme10 tcp traddr=192.168.6.24 trsvcid=4420 host_traddr=192.168.6.1 src_addr=192.168.6.1 live optimized
+- nvme2 tcp traddr=192.168.5.24 trsvcid=4420 host_traddr=192.168.5.1 src_addr=192.168.5.1 live non-optimized
+- nvme9 tcp traddr=192.168.6.25 trsvcid=4420 host_traddr=192.168.6.1 src_addr=192.168.6.1 live non-optimized

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

Column

nvme netapp ontapdevices -o column

Show example

Device         Vserver                  Namespace Path                NSID UUID                                  Size
-------------- ------------------------ ----------------------------- ---- ------------------------------------- ---------
/dev/nvme0n1   vs_coexistence_QLE2772   /vol/fcnvme_1_1_0/fcnvme_ns   1    159f9f88-be00-4828-aef6-197d289d4bd9  10.74GB
/dev/nvme0n2   vs_coexistence_QLE2772   /vol/fcnvme_1_1_1/fcnvme_ns   2    2c1ef769-10c0-497d-86d7-e84811ed2df6  10.74GB
/dev/nvme0n3   vs_coexistence_QLE2772   /vol/fcnvme_1_1_2/fcnvme_ns   3    9b49bf1a-8a08-4fa8-baf0-6ec6332ad5a4  10.74GB

JSON

nvme netapp ontapdevices -o json

Show example

{
  "ONTAPdevices" : [
    {
      "Device" : "/dev/nvme0n1",
      "Vserver" : "vs_coexistence_QLE2772",
      "Namespace_Path" : "/vol/fcnvme_1_1_0/fcnvme_ns",
      "NSID" : 1,
      "UUID" : "159f9f88-be00-4828-aef6-197d289d4bd9",
      "Size" : "10.74GB",
      "LBA_Data_Size" : 4096,
      "Namespace_Size" : 2621440
    },
    {
      "Device" : "/dev/nvme0n2",
      "Vserver" : "vs_coexistence_QLE2772",
      "Namespace_Path" : "/vol/fcnvme_1_1_1/fcnvme_ns",
      "NSID" : 2,
      "UUID" : "2c1ef769-10c0-497d-86d7-e84811ed2df6",
      "Size" : "10.74GB",
      "LBA_Data_Size" : 4096,
      "Namespace_Size" : 2621440
    },
    {
      "Device" : "/dev/nvme0n4",
      "Vserver" : "vs_coexistence_QLE2772",
      "Namespace_Path" : "/vol/fcnvme_1_1_3/fcnvme_ns",
      "NSID" : 4,
      "UUID" : "f3572189-2968-41bc-972a-9ee442dfaed7",
      "Size" : "10.74GB",
      "LBA_Data_Size" : 4096,
      "Namespace_Size" : 2621440
    },

Step 5: Optionally, enable 1MB I/O size

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

SAN hosts and cloud clients manuals ( CA08872-021 )

Configure Oracle Linux 8x with NVMe-oF for ONTAP storage

Step 1: Install Oracle Linux 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 the multipathing configuration

Step 5: Optionally, enable 1MB I/O size

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