X710: DCB (PFC - priority flow control) problem

[SAb]

Hi All,

We have 16 X710 NICs on our different servers. We require to enable PFC (priority flow control) on a specific VLAN priority (like priority # 5) on all of the NICs. However, the X710 handles lldp and dcb at the HW level and will not be managed by SW tools like dcbtool as its document says. We noticed that the willing bit is set to 1 for the NICs which means that they can accept configuration from other nodes over DCBX.

So we configured our switches (DELL N4000 series) to advertise PFC configurations to the Intel NICs. But when we set switch to advertise the configuration it wont recognize the NICs as PFC enabled NICs, and when we configure switches to accept configuration from NICs, it gets a configuration which dictates no PFC (all priorities can be dropped).

When we test the switch with other Intel NICs like i520 it is ok, and it works (after configuring the NICs with dcbtool) as expected.

So please help us,

we should configure them ASAP.

Is there any trick to disable HW DCBX and make NIC to pass the DCB/LLDP messages to the OS and later use dcbtool.

If not how should we configure it then?

Regards,

[st4]

Hi Soli,

Thank you for the post. Will need to look into this.

rgds,

wb

[SAb]

What a nice support community!

After 2 months no response, it is just a shame for such a community.

The only solution you have given our company is simple: "NEVER BUY FROM INTEL".

and we do: will never ever buy from Intel with such a poor support.

[st4]

Hi Soli,

I apologize for any delay and inconvenience this might have caused. Further checking, in order to enable PFC on X710, you need to disable LLDP agent in the adapter firmware and augment the driver, however currently we have no plan to do this.

Thanks,

wb