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2 VMware ESX/EXi
The 8Gb and 16Gb Celerity drivers for VMware
ESX/ESXI 4.x and VMware ESXI 5.x provide NPIV
support by default (the functionality does not have to
be explicitly enabled). However, there are four driver
parameters that affect the performance and behavior
of the NPIV feature, they are as follows:
Information about the VPorts is shown in the Driver
info file on the Service Console. Refer to the
Supplemental Guide for VMware ESX/ESXi in this
chapter for details on viewing or modifying the above
values.
Virtual ports are created by the kernel when an
associated VM is started, and deleted when the VM is
stopped. Active virtual ports will appear as additional
Virtual Adapters in the vSphere client.
For additional NPIV configuration details, please
consult the VMware Fibre Channel SAN Configuration
Guide
(
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41
_san_cfg.pdf
).
max_npiv_logins
The maximum number of target ports that can be logged into a virtual port.
Default is 32; maximum is 256.
max_npiv_vports
The maximum number of virtual ports for an adapter channel. The default is 16;
maximum is 64
npiv_disc_wait_time
The time period (in ms) that the driver waits for discovery to complete after
creating a virtual port. Default is 10000.
npiv_init_retries
The number of times to attempt to initialize a virtual port before giving up.
Default is 10.
