multipathd daemon won't start

[MikeL_4]

I am running Red Hat 5.5, and when trying to start the multipathd service, it fails...

# service multipathd status
multipathd is stopped
#

When I issue the start of the serverice, it says it started, but a status shows differently:

# service multipathd start
Starting multipathd daemon: [ OK ]
# service multipathd status
multipathd dead but pid file exists
# ps -ef |grep multi
root 27803 24124 0 07:47 pts/1 00:00:00 grep --color=auto multi
#

The /var/log/messages shows:
Jul 22 07:33:59 awocdb01 kernel: device-mapper: table: 253:23: multipath: error getting device
Jul 22 07:33:59 awocdb01 kernel: device-mapper: ioctl: error adding target to table
Jul 22 07:33:59 awocdb01 kernel: device-mapper: table: 253:23: multipath: error getting device
Jul 22 07:33:59 awocdb01 kernel: device-mapper: ioctl: error adding target to table

Does anyone have any ideas as to what to check on this ??

I have two (2) servers that see the same SAN LUN's, and the second server is not having this issue.. and both servers are running Red Hat 5.5, and are all patched to current level...

[FLQ · Accepted solution]

Hi MikeL,

first make sure that multipathd is not running then check if pid file exists. If so, remove it then restart multipathd.

If you run multipath -ll, do you see your LUN's?

You can try to flush multipath cache. "multipath -F"

[MikeL_4]

Tried that many times:

# ls -al /var/run/multipat*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5 Jul 22 08:29 /var/run/multipathd.pid
# ls -al /var/lock/subsys/multipat*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Jul 22 08:29 /var/lock/subsys/multipathd
# rm -f /var/lock/subsys/multipathd
# rm -f /var/run/multipathd.pid
# ls -al /var/lock/subsys/multipat*
ls: /var/lock/subsys/multipat*: No such file or directory
# ls -al /var/run/multipat*
ls: /var/run/multipat*: No such file or directory
# service multipathd status
multipathd is stopped
# multipath -F
# multipath -ll
# service multipathd start
Starting multipathd daemon: [ OK ]
[root@awocdb01 ~]# service multipathd status
multipathd dead but pid file exists
#

If I do the multipath -F, followed by multipath -v2, I can then see all of my LUN's with the multipath -ll command...

[Zinky]

Have you checked your /etc/multipath.conf? Are you using HPDM? What version? You should be using 4.4.0 or 4.4.1.

Also, what version of device-mapper-multipath are you using?

rpm -qa|gerp device-mapper-multipath

Redhat recently acknowledged issues with multipathd. It may return issues with the messages your getting BUT as long as you see yuour multipaths (multipath -ll) -- it should be ignored.

[MikeL_4]

.