Proxmox on an HP ProLiant DL360p with 331FLR / Broadcom 5719 NIC

[briceburg]

We would like to purchase new hypervisor hardware, and would like the hardware to be supported out-of-box by Proxmox. Currently we are looking at HP ProLiant DL360p (Gen8) servers (2x Intel Xeon ES-2650). My concern is that they have a 4x1Gb port 331FLR adapter. It is based on the Broadcom 5719 chipset -- which I believe has non-free firmware.

Are these recommended?

The adapter is also HP's "flexible LOM", introduced in their Gen8 servers, which I am worried may also interfere with an out-of-box installation.

Has anyone used these and will they work out-of-box?

Many thanks,

~ Brice

 

[wahmed]

While helping a friend setup purely test Proxmox platform we tried to use this one:
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/networking/331T/

But unfortunately it did not work out of the box. In fact it did not work at all. We gave up after trying several drivers, since he wanted to make the platform "easily available". I do not much about the card, but to me it seems like they both uses same Broadcom chip. Do not have much details as i was not 100% involve with the test project.

 

[briceburg]

symmcom,

That looks to be the same chip! Very sorry to hear that it didn't work out-of-box. I too want it to be easily available. Did you ever try the non-free firmware? Also -- do you know of any 4x 1Gb ethernet chipsets that are supprted?

~ Brice

 

[wahmed]

symmcom,

That looks to be the same chip! Very sorry to hear that it didn't work out-of-box. I too want it to be easily available. Did you ever try the non-free firmware? Also -- do you know of any 4x 1Gb ethernet chipsets that are supprted?

~ Brice

I dont believe we tried non-free firmware as not working out of the box was a turn off. Alternate solution we went for was dropping 4 Intel NICs in the server. Since the server was a 2U ATX, it had enough room for NIC expansion. We saved money and achieved same result. Actually this sort of gave the server a redundancy, since NIC failure was not a single card failure. But for somebody with 1U server i guess 4 port NIC is the only choice if they want multi ports. At some point i will have to gave it a try. But if you do come acorss to a multi-port NIC which "just works", do let us know.

 

[briceburg]

symmcom,

I am thinking about going with a Supermicro X9DRW-3LN4F+ in 1U servers. It features 4 NIC ports but uses the Intel i350 Gigabit controller. Apparently there was trouble w/ this in Proxmox 2.0 see [http://forum.proxmox.com/threads/10004-Intel-i350-Gigabit-Network-Driver], but I figure 3.1 will have support for it [not tested! But I assume 2.6.32-109 kernel has the 3.4.8 or above version of the Intel igb driver].


Lastly; did you test the Broadcom 5719 NIC with Proxmox 3.1?

 

[wahmed]

I am thinking about going with a Supermicro X9DRW-3LN4F+ in 1U servers. It features 4 NIC ports but uses the Intel i350 Gigabit controller. Apparently there was trouble w/ this in Proxmox 2.0 see [http://forum.proxmox.com/threads/10004-Intel-i350-Gigabit-Network-Driver], but I figure 3.1 will have support for it [not tested! But I assume 2.6.32-109 kernel has the 3.4.8 or above version of the Intel igb driver].

Although Proxmox is full feature Hypervisor, its underlying OS is Debian. So long Debian can recognize and have proper driver for the NIC, Proxmox should not have any problem recognizing too. If you see the link below, it has the Linux driver for Intel i350 chips from Intel themselves.
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=13663
It does say, the driver supports Quad port NIC. Obviously the 4 port NIC in that Supermicro motherboard works in Linux, the downloadable driver is the proof. If Proxmox 3.1 does not recognize the NIC because Debian itself do not have driver, you probably still can manually install the driver, recompile, reconfigure and all those thing and make it Proxmox able. But this will defeat the goal of "out-of-the-box" experience. I used to stick with SuperMicro motherboard, but later realized, first its costs me more because i will have to stick with Supermicro set, motherboard, chassis and all. Too many chances of not experiencing "out-of-the-box". For last 2 years i have stuck with genuine Intel boards and server Chassis such as In-Win. Easily available, costs less, less headache, easy spare parts, Proxmox "out-of-the-box" experience.

Lastly; did you test the Broadcom 5719 NIC with Proxmox 3.1?

The project was brought to an end over 8 months ago. We went with standard Xeon Server boards, 2U chassis with 4 separate NIC and was left at like that in production environment since everything just worked. The cluster did go through several upgrades but no issue so far that i know of. We never looked back at the 5719 NIC.

 

[jimsoar]

I dont believe we tried non-free firmware as not working out of the box was a turn off. Alternate solution we went for was dropping 4 Intel NICs in the server. Since the server was a 2U ATX, it had enough room for NIC expansion. We saved money and achieved same result. Actually this sort of gave the server a redundancy, since NIC failure was not a single card failure. But for somebody with 1U server i guess 4 port NIC is the only choice if they want multi ports. At some point i will have to gave it a try. But if you do come acorss to a multi-port NIC which "just works", do let us know.

Proxmox 3.1 I also thought that the 4 port adapter didn't work, however it does out of the box eth0-3 it is just a matter of ensuring you have eth0 at least plugged in to the router that would be the closest to the ILO port

Regards