All paths in standby on ESX3

[ALMGRP]

Hi,
Can anyone help explain the output below? When I run esxcfg-mpath –l I got the results below for (I think) my EVA console LUN0.
All my other luns on this host have at least one path marked “ON”.

RAID Controller (SCSI-3) vmhba1:0:0 (0MB) has 4 paths and policy of Most Recently Used
FC 16:0.0 50060b0000c28204<->50001fe15004a28d vmhba1:0:0 Off active
FC 16:0.0 50060b0000c28204<->50001fe15004a288 vmhba1:1:0 Standby
FC 16:0.1 50060b0000c28206<->50001fe15004a28c vmhba2:0:0 Standby preferred
FC 16:0.1 50060b0000c28206<->50001fe15004a289 vmhba2:1:0 Standby

RAID Controller (SCSI-3) vmhba1:2:0 (0MB) has 4 paths and policy of Most Recently Used
FC 16:0.0 50060b0000c28204<->50001fe15003d0ed vmhba1:2:0 On active preferred
FC 16:0.0 50060b0000c28204<->50001fe15003d0e8 vmhba1:3:0 Standby
FC 16:0.1 50060b0000c28206<->50001fe15003d0ec vmhba2:2:0 Standby
FC 16:0.1 50060b0000c28206<->50001fe15003d0e9 vmhba2:3:0 Standby


I ran esxcfg-mpath --path=vmhba1:0:0 --lun=vmhba1:0:0 --state=on to set this path to “ON” but instead it went to “Standby”

RAID Controller (SCSI-3) vmhba1:0:0 (0MB) has 4 paths and policy of Most Recently Used
FC 16:0.0 50060b0000c28204<->50001fe15004a28d vmhba1:0:0 Standby active
FC 16:0.0 50060b0000c28204<->50001fe15004a288 vmhba1:1:0 Standby
FC 16:0.1 50060b0000c28206<->50001fe15004a28c vmhba2:0:0 Standby preferred
FC 16:0.1 50060b0000c28206<->50001fe15004a289 vmhba2:1:0 Standby

RAID Controller (SCSI-3) vmhba1:2:0 (0MB) has 4 paths and policy of Most Recently Used
FC 16:0.0 50060b0000c28204<->50001fe15003d0ed vmhba1:2:0 On active preferred
FC 16:0.0 50060b0000c28204<->50001fe15003d0e8 vmhba1:3:0 Standby
FC 16:0.1 50060b0000c28206<->50001fe15003d0ec vmhba2:2:0 Standby
FC 16:0.1 50060b0000c28206<->50001fe15003d0e9 vmhba2:3:0 Standby


I don’t see this lun in the storage configuration for my hosts in Virtual Centre, all the lun’s on all hosts show no disabled paths.

Regards

[Uwe Zessin]

EVA storage systems present a SCSI type 12(10) 'controller LUN' at LUN address #0. It is used for in-band management of the EVA and SCSI-3 "REPORT LUNs" lookups.

Due to the type 12 it does not look like a disk device (type 0). Which is why you don't see it as a device you could put a datastore on.

I don't have access to an active/passive EVA (do you have a 3000 or 5000?) / a VI3 environment and it seems I don't have any logs saved from such a configuration, so I cannot tell if it is Ok that most paths show 'Standby'.

If you have an A/P EVA with 4 host ports, you should see two active and two standby paths. Maybe ESX has become confused - certainly a good idea to check.