On 09/09/2011 10:05 PM, Drew Weaver wrote:

Hi,

I could be wrong here but don't you go into the Broadcom NIC configuration while the server is booting and add the iSCSI target in there and then it should appear as "Just Another Volume (TM)" to the operating system?

I've never tried it but I assume thats how the 'offloading' works.

close, but not. TCP Offloading (obviously) offloads the TCP protocol processing from the server CPU onto the server adapter. This preserves valuable CPU cycles for applications processing and improves overall server performance and network efficiency, as the heavy lifting for iSCSI is done on the card, by the card.

<snip>

After finding multiples answers to this question via google, but without

making it work on my servers. Has anybody iSCSI Offload working on a Dell Server with Broadcom NICs ?

Depending on how the Broadcom is in the server (ie - Physical Card vs onboard mezzanine card) depends on if you enable it in BIOS, or switch into the firmware when prompted at boot time to enable it.

Am 09.09.2011 21:38, schrieb Alexander Dalloz:

Am 09.09.2011 14:00, schrieb Antonio da Silva Martins Junior:

...

Hi all,

After finding multiples answers to this question via google, but without making it work on my servers. Has anybody iSCSI Offload working on a Dell Server with Broadcom NICs ?

My environment: I'm running CentOS 5.6 CR, on a Dell PowerEdge R710 with Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme II BCM5709 conecting to an EMC CX4-120 SAN, via 2x Cisco 2960G-24TC-L switches. It's working without the iSCSI offload.

Thanks in advance,

         Antonio.

http://www.dell.com/us/enterprise/p/broadcom-netxtremeii-5709-iscsi/pd.aspx

quote "No Linux support for TOE"

Alexander

On the other hand Dell has documentation on how to use your card for iSCSI offloading:

http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/network/BroadCom/R230837/en/linux...

Important part is to load the cnic module together with the bnx2i module. You must see a message like

bnx2i [05:00.00]: ISCSI_INIT passed

at system bootup.

Alexander