# FC Emulex LP1150-E and FreeBSD 9.3



## allan_sundry (Feb 5, 2016)

Hello,

I have one old fibre channel adapter Emulex LP1150-E (PCI-X). When I try to use it with FreeBSD 9.3 it seems like OS doesn't recognize it.

Can I use this card with FreeBSD 9.3 or should I try it with FreeBSD 10.2 or some other OS?

Thanks in advance.


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## tingo (Feb 7, 2016)

If your machine (the one with the Emulex card in) has usb ports and can boot from them, it is very easy just writing FreeBSD 10.2 (or even the beta for 10.3) onto a usb stick and boot from that to see if your card is recognized.
Just sayin' ...


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## robroy (Feb 7, 2016)

allan_sundry, I couldn't find any mention of support for the LP1150-E (or any Emulex FC HBA) on the 11.0-CURRENT supported hardware page, nor on the 10.2-RELEASE supported hardware page.

I agree with tingo that booting newer FreeBSD versions from a USB stick would be a practical experiment, if that's easy for you to do.  It might be sort of a "final nail in the coffin" thing for the LP1150-E though, since I couldn't find any claim that this card was supported.

If you'd like to achieve FC connectivity and your heart's not set on using an Emulex, you might consider switching to a QLogic supported by isp(4).

Based on the prices 4Gb FC HBAs go for on eBay these days, it appears as though a lot of people are dumping their old 4Gb equipment.  So buying a 4Gb QLogic shouldn't set you back much.

I recently bought two QLE2462 (4Gb, PCI-e, dual port) FC HBAs over eBay from a place in Nevada for under $20 ($10 per HBA), _including_ shipping.  I plugged one of these HBAs in to my spare computer (Supermirco H8SCM), and isp(4) in FreeBSD 10.2-RELEASE detected it just fine.  I didn't have anything to attach the HBA ports to at the time, yet it looked like it might have actually worked (with sufficient tinkering).

If your computer only has PCI-X slots, you could probably pick up a QLA2462 for a similar approximately-free price.

A lot of the QLogics on eBay are listed as Dell re-brands, because they were originally sold in Dell servers.  Mine were like this.  I hesitated to buy them because I was afraid having to run fishy, Dell-customized firmware images on them.  Yet, when I received the boards, I found nary a mention of "Dell" anywhere on them physically, nor in their firmware setup programs accessed during POST, nor in anything reported by isp(4).  I may have simply lucked out in this regard, and some re-brands may indeed differ from vanilla from-QLogic HBAs in some way.  But at only $10 each, buying one's not too great a risk.

In the recent FreeBSD quarterly report, I read that iXsystems has sponsored a major update to isp(4), which should make the QLogic HBAs even more attractive.

Emulex vs QLogic:  this is probably a moot point since it looks like FreeBSD doesn't support Emulex FC HBAs, yet between Emulex and QLogic, I'd always recommend QLogic.  From 2006 to 2009, I worked at VMware as a SAN test dude for ESX, starting with the project that first introduced 4Gb support to ESX.  Between the Emulex and QLogic HBAs, the vast majority of driver and HBA firmware bugs I collided with were with the Emulex boards, which were mostly LP11002 (PCI-X) and LPe11002 (PCI-e) models.  The developers there were constantly working on the lpfc driver.  I can't even remember the _name_ of the QLogic HBA driver right now, and there's a reason for that; the QLogics worked more often.

Finally, the LP1150-E was actually a pariah board at VMware because it didn't work with ESX at all.  If I remember correctly, it only worked with Windows, because it depended on a greater amount of its functionality to be implemented in the driver than the more expensive models did, and this wasn't happening in the Linux-derived lpfc driver ESX used.  Its "big brothers," the LP11002 and LPe11002 had to be used instead.


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## allan_sundry (Feb 7, 2016)

I have one QLE2532 and it works great with FreeBSD. I think I'll buy a QLA2462 card. 
Thanks for your reply.


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## robroy (Feb 7, 2016)

You're welcome allan_sundry.  That's interesting to hear that the QLE2532 works.


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## allan_sundry (Feb 7, 2016)

Here is a few notes about my QLE2532:


```
isp0: <Qlogic ISP 2532 PCI FC-AL Adapter> port 0xe800-0xe8ff mem 0xfbdbc000-0xfbdbffff irq 32 at device 0.0 on pci5
isp0: setting role to 0x2
isp1: <Qlogic ISP 2532 PCI FC-AL Adapter> port 0xe400-0xe4ff mem 0xfbd3c000-0xfbd3ffff irq 42 at device 0.1 on pci5
```


```
# cat /boot/loader.conf
...
ispfw_load="YES"
isp_load="YES"
...

# camcontrol devlist
<HP MSA 1040 SAN G210>             at scbus0 target 0 lun 0 (da2,pass2)
<HP MSA 1040 SAN G210>             at scbus1 target 0 lun 0 (da1,pass1)
...

# gmultipath list
Geom name: DDN-v00
Type: AUTOMATIC
Mode: Active/Passive
UUID: bbe3427b-c41f-11e5-a3f6-002590080c70
State: OPTIMAL
Providers:
1. Name: multipath/DDN-v00
   Mediasize: 2047998950912 (1.9T)
   Sectorsize: 512
   Mode: r1w1e1
   State: OPTIMAL
Consumers:
1. Name: da1
   Mediasize: 2047998951424 (1.9T)
   Sectorsize: 512
   Mode: r2w2e2
   State: ACTIVE
2. Name: da2
   Mediasize: 2047998951424 (1.9T)
   Sectorsize: 512
   Mode: r2w2e2
   State: PASSIVE

# zpool status
  pool: tank
 state: ONLINE
  scan: none requested
config:

        NAME                 STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
        tank                 ONLINE       0     0     0
          multipath/DDN-v00  ONLINE       0     0     0

errors: No known data errors
```


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## misurbraford (Jun 20, 2017)

Just for the record, today I tried to put an Emulex card in an old Medion desktop running FreeNAS11 (based on freeBSD 11, of course).
It just recognized the device out of the 'box', the box being a Proliant DL380g6 I recently bought for experimenting. In my search for a driver for the card, I came across this thread.
I have no idea if i will ever get it in working state, but the device is recognized...

```
[@freenas /]# lspci -s 01:00.0                                            
01:00.0 Fibre Channel: Emulex Corporation Zephyr LightPulse Fibre Channel Host Adapter (rev 02)
```


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## kyou (Aug 7, 2017)

misurbraford said:


> Just for the record, today I tried to put an Emulex card in an old Medion desktop running FreeNAS11 (based on freeBSD 11, of course).
> It just recognized the device out of the 'box', the box being a Proliant DL380g6 I recently bought for experimenting. In my search for a driver for the card, I came across this thread.
> I have no idea if i will ever get it in working state, but the device is recognized...
> 
> ...


Hi, did it work?


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