PowerFlex 4.X, Dynamic Direct Path I/O causes errors in vCenter and PowerFlex Manager

Summary: When performing PCI Passthrough in vCenter for an SVM with Dynamic Direct Path I/O enabled in a manual HCI deployment, an error occurs if the VM's VMX level is below 13. This issue will also propagate to PowerFlex Manager during future upgrade attempts. ...

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Symptoms

When adding the PCI device to the SVM, you have the option to select either Direct Path I/O and Dynamic DirectPath I/O. When Dynamic DirectPath I/O is selected and saved, and the VMs VMX version is 13 or below you will receive this error:
  
When adding the PCI device to the SVM, you will have the option to select either Direct Path I/O and Dynamic DirectPath I/O. When Dynamic DirectPath I/O is selected and saved and the VMs VMX version is 13 or below you will receive this error:
 

If the VM's VMX version is higher than VMX-13, you can successfully map the PCI device to the VM and add the HCI hosts to PowerFlex Manager. However, when attempting an upgrade, the following errors will appear in the deployment logs during the task:

 

ERROR [2024-08-23T23:10:21.011646] 9920: service_deployment.rb:6080:in `process_firmware_update': Encountered an error during firmware update: RuntimeError: env --unset=RUBYOPT --unset=GEM_HOME --unset=RUBYLIB --unset=GEM_PATH --unset=BUNDLE_BIN_PATH RUBYLIB=/opt/service/lib:/opt/asm-deployer/lib:/opt/puppetlabs/puppet/lib:/opt/dependencies/dell-asm-util/lib PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/opt/puppetlabs/puppet/bin:/opt/puppetlabs/bin puppet asm process_node --debug --trace --filename /opt/Dell/ASM/deployments/Job-aee702a5-f8c9-426f-a005-530dcdf59f2b/resources/vm-xx03xxxx03.yaml --run_type apply --statedir /opt/Dell/ASM/deployments/Job-aee702a5-f8c9-426f-a005-530dcdf59f2b/resources --always-override vm-xx03xxxx03.yaml failed; output in /opt/Dell/ASM/deployments/Job-aee702a5-f8c9-426f-a005-530dcdf59f2b-0-2/vm-xx03xxxx03.out



 

When reviewing the vm-xx03xxxx03.out file you should see this:
 

Error: /Stage[main]/Asm::Resource_wrapper/Vc_vm_pci_passthru[VA03PAVC0003]: Could not evaluate: undefined method `id' for #<RbVmomi::VIM::VirtualDeviceDeviceBackingInfo:0x00007fa8fc865e78>
/etc/puppetlabs/puppet/modules/vcenter/lib/puppet/provider/vc_vm_pci_passthru/default.rb:91:in `block in vm_pci_device'




 

Dynamic DirectPath I/O will cause future HCI Resource Group upgrades to fail.

 

Cause

Using Dynamic DirectPath I/O alters the VMX file from its expected default configuration, leading to downstream errors when attempting to parse the VMX file for VM details during PowerFlex Manager upgrade tasks. This ultimately results in automation failures as mentioned above  Dynamic DirectPath I/O is not supported by PFxM.

 

Resolution

To resolve this issue:

  1. Place the SDS into PMM
  2. Go to vCenter locate the SVM that is using Dynamic DirectPath I/O
  3. Power off the VM
  4. Right-click the VM 
  5. Edit Settings
  6. Expand the PCI Passthrough Device tab and change the Dynamic DirectPath I/O to DirectPath I/O
  7. Save the settings.
  8. Power on VM
  9. Repeat this for all VMs that need to be converted to DirectPath I/O from Dynamic DirectPath I/O

End of Process

Article Properties
Article Number: 000229064
Article Type: Solution
Last Modified: 03 Mar 2025
Version:  2
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