Dell R740 issues with XenServer 7.1/7.2

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My last post talked about our new Dell R740s.  Response to that post have pointed out that there are a few things worth following up with since people have been having some issues with this server/Intel Gold 61xx Processors.

I had a few minor issues getting XenServer installed, but mostly around storage and networking.

*I should note that my servers are showing crash dumps in XenCenter, but everything is working perfectly.  Waiting on my support case to have those SSRs analyzed (case originally started to ask about support for the H740p card in XS7.2).  I will post and update when I hear back tomorrow morning.

Storage Controller - H740p

 We went with the H740p card which is not supported on XenServer 7.2 (although support tells me it may be soon) so we had to go to 7.1.1 (7.1 CU1) and install the driver at https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX226401.  If you had to load this to detect disks, make sure you install it AGAIN at the end during supplemental packs to actually have the driver after boot up.

Network Issues

The other issue we had was reassigning the management interface through XenCenter.  This may be down to using non HCL 10GbE BASE-T adapter (there weren't any supported ones on the R740).  It would not release the IP config from the prior interface, leaving 2 interfaces with the same configuration and routing would fail intermittently.  Eventually we just got lucky and got them configured although some manual work in shell works as well.

Processors and BIOS settings

Since many other have had issues with processors and XenServer crashing, I did some looking at my BIOS settings for Processors.  Our instance was installed with x2APIC Mode disabled (which is how it shipped coming from Dell.  A full list of BIOS processor settings:



I even enabled x2APIC mode and restarted both of my servers.  Everything seems to be fine even Enabled.  Still generated a crash dump, but seemingly no operational issues.

Comments

  1. Richard GardnerNovember 29, 2017 at 10:36 AM

    I too had this issue whereby Xenserver would not load without x2APIC mode enabled. I'm surprised there is no KB for this considering Dell are shipping servers with this setting disabled.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pieter SchepensDecember 8, 2017 at 12:11 PM

    We wanted to install XenServer 7.2 on two Dell R640's. I can confirm this:
    * The Citrix installer is not able to find any disks: the PERC H740p is not recognized.
    * If you try to install Windows Server 2016 by booting a disk or iso, the situation is the same: no disks found.
    * If you install an OS from the Lifecycle Controller, extra drivers are loaded: Windows and VMWare can detect and use the disk. But there's no choice anymore to choose XenServer from the OS list.
    * If you load the driver mentioned in https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX226401, you can install and use XenServer 7.1.
    * That driver doesn't work for XenServer 7.2. As far as we know, there's no way to install XenServer 7.2 if you have the PERC H740p RAID controller.
    * On the first server, where we used normal BIOS, we had to enable x2APIC in the CPU settings to be able to boot XenServer 7.1. On the second server, on which we choose UEFI in stead of BIOS, we didn't have to do that.

    Now there's hoping a driver for the H740p for XenServer 7.2 will arrive soon. As far as I know, there's no news about that up to now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jeremy StroebelDecember 8, 2017 at 12:59 PM

      I have been working with support on this. They sent me a non GA driver for 7.2 with indications it was coming... did not work and appeared to be the 7.1 driver disk available via that link (which is what I used for 7.1). The R740 does have other controller options supported on 7.2 though.

      Delete
  3. Richard GardnerDecember 8, 2017 at 12:27 PM

    Out of interest, how did you install Xenserver with UEFI using the ISO?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Pieter SchepensDecember 8, 2017 at 12:39 PM

    Boot into life cycle controller > choose UEFI instead of BIOS in the system settings > load iso of XenServer 7.1 via iDRAC > choose OS Deployment in life cycle controller (any operating system) > boot on iso.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Richard GardnerDecember 8, 2017 at 12:44 PM

    I thought I tried that. Perhaps it was because my ISO was on a USB stick. I will give iDRAC a go (at the time, the servers weren't networked.)

    ReplyDelete
  6. JulienMarch 15, 2019 at 12:50 PM

    In case someone else has an issue, XenServer 7.1 CU2 has a bug and will most of the time fail to detect the virtual drive during the install even with the drivers loaded. If you get lucky after many retries, it may detect the drive!

    If you want to be sure, use XenServer 7.1 CU1 with the drivers, it is always working!

    I had the issue with Dell R7425 EPIC + H740p.

    You can upgrade to CU2, the drivers work fine, the issue is the detect during CU2 install, it must be a bug!!!

    Julien

    ReplyDelete
  7. UnknownApril 7, 2020 at 11:01 AM

    Try this driver on R640 with PERC H740P raid controller. https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX246457?recommended

    ReplyDelete

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