Major issues with Dell R640 Server Edition on 11.1.2.4 1

[lleeNC]

All,

I upgraded the Primary Server (Dell R630) and Secondary Server (Dell R640) to 11.1.2.4 last night. No issues with the Primary Server. The Secondary Server on the other hand had some issues.

Upon upgrading to 11.1.2.4, the server's eth interfaces became inoperable. No link lights when connected. Going through the Network Manager tool via Linux showed none of the eth interfaces/ports were being detected.

Contacted Avaya support (as an outage) and was told to reignite the server, which I did. This brought the eth interfaces up but I cannot connect to the default addresses 192.168.42.1 or 43.1. Not pingable at all.

Has anyone come across this issue before? Not sure what to do at this point.

Going through a technical bulletin published by Avaya, looks like they had a resolved issue in 11.1.2.3 -> IPOFFICE-170192 Dell R640 eth port keeps moving physical port post reboot. Not sure if this is related and if it is... it's certainly not fixed.

 

[lleeNC]

All,

Do not upgrade a R640 to 11.1.2.x. See below,

- Upgraded Primary Server (Dell R630) and V2 chassis’ to 11.1.2.4 without any issues.
- Upgraded Secondary Server (Dell R640) to 11.1.2.4 and experienced issues with the NIC interfaces/Eth ports
o No link lights and Linux Network Manager showed Eth0 (LAN1) and Eth1 (LAN2) as missing despite being able to turn up the interfaces via Linux commands.
o On the recommendation of Avaya, I reignited the Secondary Server with a fresh 11.1.2.4 install. Eth0 and Eth1 ports light up and shows up in Network Manager but they were still inoperable.
Connections could not be made despite multiple reboots (both server and laptop).
o Attempted to update BIOS + firmware (provided by Avaya) updates to various server components (including the Broadcom NIC). Firmware upgrades were completed but ran into issues with the BIOS
upgrade.
o Secondary server booted fine with the older BIOS + newer firmwares but the issue remains.
o Decided to go back to 11.0.4.7 through reignition and the problem with the Eth0 and Eth1 went away.


Looking at the Tech Bulletin for 11.1.2.3 (not 11.1.2.4), we can see the following JIRA,
- IP Office 170192 - Dell R640 eth port keeps moving physical port post reboot.

This is most likely the issue and it is not resolved even though the 11.1.2.3 tech bulletin states that it has been resolved.

Still in contact with Avaya and they have stated that they might send out a R630 (possibly for free from the sounds of it?) due to this issue.

 

[lleeNC]

Just a quick note,

Avaya is sending a new server due to this issue (R630 not a R640). I'm honestly amazed by the quick resolution and support from them. Was not expecting this at all from Avaya during this time.

 

[lleeNC]

Just wanted to give another update on this,

So after some extensive testing, I don't think there is an issue with the R640. The issue lies with R11.1.

On a R630/R640, 11.0.4.x will utilize the Bottom four ethernet ports. If you go to 11.1.2.x, then the R630/R640 will utilize a different NIC adapter on the server. It's the one with the two ethernet ports. These servers have a total of 6 ethernet ports. 2 on one NIC adapter and 4 on a different NIC. Not sure if this was intended. I've tested this out on three different servers.

Hope this helps.

 

[derfloh]

Had it as well after upgrading. If you don't know it you are stuck as you will not reach it. If you know you can re-plug the cables.

It also makes the licenses invalid as the licenses have to be bound against the new "first" NIC.

IP Office remote service
IP Office certificate check
CLI based call blocking
SCN fallback over PSTN