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Article Number: 000168183


VPLEX: Can not enable a VS2 Front-End (FE) Port

Summary: This article talks about when a VS2 front end port shows as disabled and needs to be reset back to enabled.

Article Content


Symptoms



Impact:
The inability to enable a VS2 front-end port in VPlexcli can lead to prolonged loss of redundancy on the Front End (FE) of the VPLEX, and also has the potential to impact a Generational Hardware Upgrade (GenU) of a VS2 to VS6.
 
Issue:
A VS2 running GeoSynchrony 6.x has a front-end (FE) port listed in the VPlexcli as having a status of  down  indicating it is disabled.
 
Attempts to re-enable the FE port in VPlexcli (using the  set enabled true  command) do not return any errors, yet the FE port remains in  down  state.
 
Example for verifying the issue:
 
1] Check the FE port status by using the following command, and check what FE port(s) are down
    (disabled):
 
    In the following sample output below (we are only including the output from director-1-1-B):
 
  •  director-1-1-B B0-FC02 is  down  (disabled)
  • this is the port with the issue
 
     also note:
 
  • ports B0-FC00 and FC01 are  up  (enabled and have connectivity)
  • port B0-FC03 is showing as  no-link  state (enabled, up, yet no connectivity, meaning no light level from the source end)
          Checking the status of the ports on all engines and ports
VPlexcli:/> ll /engines/*/directors/*/hardware/ports*
or
VPlexcli:/> ll /engines/**/ports
 
/engines/engine-1-1/directors/director-1-1-B/hardware/ports:
 
Name     Address             Role       Port Status
-------  ------------------  ---------  -----------
B-CMI00  2                   -          down
B0-FC00  0x50001442902a0a00  front-end  up
B0-FC01  0x50001442902a0a01  front-end  up
B0-FC02  0x0000000000000000  front-end  down <<<< port with issue
B0-FC03  0x50001442902a0a03  front-end  no-link
B1-FC00  0x50001442902a0a10  back-end   up
 
 
2) Attempt to enable the  down  port by using the VPlexcli command  set enabled true .
 
     a] First, cd into the context of the FE port in question,

          example:
          VPlexcli:/> cd /engines/engine-1-1/directors/director-1-1-B/hardware/ports/B0-FC02
 
 
     b] Then issue the  set enabled true  command,
 
         example:
    VPlexcli:/engines/engine-1-1/directors/director-1-1-B/hardware/ports/B0-FC02> set enabled true
VPlexcli:/engines/engine-1-1/directors/director-1-1-B/hardware/ports/B0-FC02>
 
        Note: No error will be returned, after the command is run, the prompt returns as shown above.
 
     c] From the 'B0-FC02" context level issue the  cd ..  command to change to the  ports  context level
         of the director, and then run the long listing,  ll , command to check the state of the port again. It will
         still show with the  down  status:
 
          example:
           VPlexcli:/engines/engine-1-1/directors/director-1-1-B/hardware/ports/B0-FC02> cd ..
           VPlexcli:/engines/engine-1-1/directors/director-1-1-B/hardware/ports> ll
 
     Name     Address             Role       Port Status
     -------  ------------------  ---------  -----------
     B-CMI00  2                   -          down
     B0-FC00  0x50001442902a0a00  front-end  up
     B0-FC01  0x50001442902a0a01  front-end  up
     B0-FC02  0x0000000000000000  front-end  down <<< still shows as down like before
     B0-FC03  0x50001442902a0a03  front-end  no-link
            
  
 
A VS2 to VS6 GenU can also fail if a VS2 has a FE port in the  down  state prior to the GenU.
 
During the GenU, the state/settings of the VS2 (including that of the FE ports) are transferred to the VS6, and then during the  I/O Transfer Phase  portion of the GenU, when the VS6 director is being brought up, the FE ports are enabled.  If one or more VS2 FE ports are in a  down  state (disabled) prior to the GenU, and especially if those ports cannot be enabled in the VPlexcli, it can lead to the  I/O Transfer Phase  failing. As the step of enabling the FE ports on the VS6 director will silently fail, and then a subsequent step waiting for all FE ports to have the  enabled  state (on the VS6 director) will fail due to a timeout error.
 
 
Example of the error returned during the  I/O Transfer Phase  of the GenU:
 
Continuing I/O transfer with connectivity issues could cause data unavailability and system instability. Connectivity issues must be fixed before proceeding. Would you like to re-check connectivity? (Retry/Abort): retry
Transferring director-2-1-A to VS6: .....................ERROR <<<<<
Failed to complete director transfer to VS6: hardware-upgrade Evaluation of
 <<hardware-upgrade transfer-io --vs6 --director transfer-io: director-2-1-A>> failed. <<<<<<
cause: Command execution failed. cause: *Evaluation of <<wait -c
[/engines/engine-2-1/directors/director-2-1-A/hardware/ports/A0-FC00,
 /engines/engine-2-1/directors/director-2-1-A/hardware/ports/A0-FC01,
 /engines/engine-2-1/directors/director-2-1-A/hardware/ports/A0-FC02,
 /engines/engine-2-1/directors/director-2-1-A/hardware/ports/A0-FC03] -a enabled -v*
 True -t 240>> failed. cause: Command execution failed. cause: Timed out after 240 seconds

Cause

An internal VPLEX component related to the FE port is in a disabled state.  The root cause of why this state becomes disabled is not yet known.

Resolution

If this issue is encountered engage Dell EMC VPLEX Customer Service to implement a workaround to enable the FE port. When contacting Dell EMC Customer Service mention this article.

Permanent Fix:
Dell EMC VPLEX Engineering is currently investigating this problem. Once a fix is available this article will be updated.

Article Properties


Affected Product

VPLEX Series

Product

VPLEX Series, VPLEX VS2

Last Published Date

20 Nov 2020

Version

2

Article Type

Solution