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Important information about special partitions, Limitations and known issues – Dell POWERVAULT MD3600I User Manual

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1.

Unmount all Device Mapper multipath device nodes mounted on the server: # umount

2.

Stop the Device Mapper multipath service: # /etc/init.d/multipathd stop

3.

Flush the Device Mapper multipath maps list to remove any old or modified mappings: # multipath –F

NOTE: The boot operating system drive may have an entry with the Device Mapper multipathing table. This is
not affected by the multipath –F command.

4.

Log out of all iSCSI sessions from the host server to the storage array: # iscsiadm –m node --logout

Important Information About Special Partitions

When using Device Mapper with the MD Series storage arrays, all physical disks are assigned a disk device node. This
includes a special device type used for in-band management of the storage arrays, known as the Access Disk or
Universal Xport device.

CAUTION: Certain commands, such as lsscsi, display one or more instances of Universal Xport devices. These
device nodes must never be accessed, mounted, or used in any way. Doing so can cause loss of communication to
the storage array and possibly cause serious damage to the storage array, potential making data stored on the
array inaccessible.

Only multipathing device nodes and partition nodes created using the directions provided above must be mounted or in
any way accessed by the host system or its users.

Table 7. Useful Device Mapper Commands

Command

Description

multipath –h

Prints usage information.

multipath –ll

Displays the current multipath topology using all available information (sysfs, the
device mapper, path checkers, and so on).

multipath

Re-aggregates multipathing device with simplified output.

multipath –f

Flushes out Device Mapper for the specified multipathing device. Used if the
underlying physical devices are deleted/unmapped.

multipath –F

Flushes out all unused multipathing device maps.

rescan_dm_devs

Dell provided script. Forces a rescan of the host SCSI bus and aggregates
multipathing devices as needed. Use this command when:

LUNs are dynamically mapped to the hosts.

New targets are added to the host.

Failback of the storage array is required.

For MD Series iSCSI storage arrays, iSCSI sessions have to be

established for rescan to take effect.

Limitations And Known Issues

In certain error conditions with the no_path_retry or the queue_if_no_path feature is set,

applications may hang. To overcome these conditions, enter the following command for each affected multipath

device:
dmsetup message [device] 0 "fail_if_no_path"

where [device] is the multipath device name (for example, mpath2; do not specify the path)

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