EVA4000 & VMWARE ESX , Masking lun 0

[Eric Brooke]

I have 3 bl20p-g3's running vmware esx with data drives on the san and local scsi system disks. ( I know its not suppoted just yet should be by Aug) anyway it all works . except I get some strange error messages about Lun 0 and its geometry. VMware have sugested That I mask or zone out Lun 0 ( this is the eva4000) any body have any ideas on how to do this.

Below is what vmware sent me.

Summarizing out phone call, the 0MB LUN your ESX Host is currently seeing has
this information:
Vendor: HP Model: HSV200 Rev: 5020
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 06
Id: 50 0 1f e1 50 6 9c 20 48 53 56 32 30 30
Size: 0 Mbytes
Queue Depth: 32


Partition Info:
Block size: 512
Num Blocks: 1



Partition VM cmds reads KBread writes KBwritten
cmdsAbrt busRst paeCmds paeCopies splitCmds spli

VM Shares cmds reads KBread writes KBwritten
cmdsAbrt busRst paeCmds paeCopies splitCmds splitC
127 1000 20 4 2 0 0
0 0 0 0 0
Total 1000 20 4 2 0 0
0 0 0 0 0

Paths:fixed
vmhba1:0:0 on*#
vmhba1:1:0 on
vmhba2:0:0 on
vmhba2:1:0 on

You should contact HP for instructions on how to mask or zone out this LUN.

[Uwe Zessin]

You cannot disable LUN 0 on the EVA, you might be able to do so on the fibre channel switch if it can filter SCSI commands (rather unlikely) - VMware (and Linux) should rather learn that there are arrays that present a non-disk device at LUN 0 and they should learn to use a SCSI-3 "REPORT LUNs" command against this LUN 0 (after all - that is one of its purposes).

[Eric Brooke]

Thank you. I was hoping that there was a easy way to hide the eva4000. has anyone else seen this problem?

[Uwe Zessin · Accepted solution]

There is a way (two, exactly) to mask out specific LUNs from the storage array.

One is to specify MAXLUNs, but that won't help here, because it specifies the upper limit.

The other one is to mask out specific LUN numbers/ ranges from scanning. See the 'VMware ESX Server Userâ s Manual', 'Changing VMkernel Configuration Options for SANs'. The configuration option is named: DiskMaskLUNs

[Eric Brooke]

Cool,
back to the manual.

[Eric Brooke]

tried DiskMaskLUN, won't let me mask Lun 0 only lun 1 and above. I can change the lun number of the eva4000 via comand view. As I have never changed it on any of my other sites I just left it at 0.

Is there a guide for the eva3000's on best practices for VMware ESX?

[Uwe Zessin]

> I can change the lun number of the eva4000 via comand view.

Is that on the array's property page? That is not the LUN number, but the "LUN identifier" or "OS Unit ID". It does not change the position in the SCSI LUN address space - it rather puts this value into a vendor-specific SCSI page. The entry is only required for some HP AlphaServer operating systems and not used/ understood by other OSes.

There are some 'best practices' for HP ProLiant servers, but I don't recall anything about HP storage arrays right now. Some information about HP gear is embedded in VMware's own documents.

You can always try a search on HP's web:
- browse to http://www.hp.com/go/support
- enter "vmware" into the Search: field
- click on ">>"

[Eric Brooke]

Tried the HP support web page they did not have any info on vmware. I'll try vmware support again.

[Uwe Zessin]

Eric,
I get lots of hits from a search, e.g.:

- Best practices for VMware ESX Server on HP ProLiant servers
http://search.hp.com/redirect.html?type=REG&qt=vmware&url=http%3A//h71019.www7.hp.com/ActiveAnswers/cache/71083-0-0-225-121.html&pos=8

- HP.com - VMware from HP for ProLiant - Certification matrix for VMware on ProLiant servers
http://search.hp.com/redirect.html?type=REG&qt=vmware&url=http%3A//h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/software/vmware/hpvmwarecert.html&pos=1

- Software and Drivers - download HP Insight Manager Agents for VMware ESX Server, 7.2.0
http://search.hp.com/redirect.html?type=REG&qt=vmware&url=http%3A//h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/download/22657.html&pos=23

[Duncan Edmonstone]

Eric,

WHat sort of switch do you have between the host and the EVA? Some FC switches (e.g. Cisco MDS) will let you do LUN masking.

HTH

Duncan