# Problems with MD3200 storage with 2 controllers and 2 HBA + gmultipath



## Olostech (Feb 4, 2013)

I have a DELL R815, it is with two HBA that are directly connected to the MD3200 storage, where they are in the redundancy module and HBA driver.

I configured two virtual disks in storage, where each module has its primary controller, for example: vdisc1 - Module 1 priority, vdisc2 - module 2.

To close the redundancio each HBA is connected to each of the storage modules.

So I need the gmultipath, reconheÃ§as paths, that in which he is only acknowledging the way in which the vdisc as is preferred.

Below.



```
# camcontrol devlist | grep DELL
<DELL MD32xx 0780>                 at scbus0 target 3 lun 0 (pass0,da0)
<DELL MD32xx 0780>                 at scbus0 target 3 lun 1 (pass1,da1)
<DELL Universal Xport 0780>        at scbus0 target 3 lun 31 (pass2,da2)
<DELL MD32xx 0780>                 at scbus0 target 4 lun 0 (pass3,da3)
<DELL MD32xx 0780>                 at scbus0 target 4 lun 1 (pass4,da4)
<DELL Universal Xport 0780>        at scbus0 target 4 lun 31 (pass5,da5)
<DELL MD32xx 0780>                 at scbus5 target 3 lun 0 (pass6,da6)
<DELL MD32xx 0780>                 at scbus5 target 3 lun 1 (pass7,da7)
<DELL Universal Xport 0780>        at scbus5 target 3 lun 31 (pass8,da8)
<DELL MD32xx 0780>                 at scbus5 target 4 lun 0 (pass9,da9)
<DELL MD32xx 0780>                 at scbus5 target 4 lun 1 (pass10,da10)
<DELL Universal Xport 0780>        at scbus5 target 4 lun 31 (pass11,da11)

# camcontrol inquiry da0 -S
255009A
# camcontrol inquiry da1 -S
255009A
# camcontrol inquiry da3 -S
255009C
# camcontrol inquiry da4 -S
255009C
# camcontrol inquiry da6 -S
255009A
# camcontrol inquiry da7 -S
255009A
# camcontrol inquiry da9 -S
255009C
# camcontrol inquiry da10 -S
255009C
```

create multipah - vdisc2

```
# gmultipath label -v PGXLOG da1 da4 da7 da10
```

result in /var/log/messages

```
Feb  4 13:03:10  kernel: GEOM: da1: media size does not match label.
Feb  4 13:03:10  kernel: GEOM_MULTIPATH: adding da1 to PGXLOG/fd2b4cc1-6edb-11e2-a2d3-d4ae52e542ec
Feb  4 13:03:10  kernel: GEOM_MULTIPATH: da1 now active path in PGXLOG
Feb  4 13:03:10  kernel: GEOM: da1: media size does not match label.
Feb  4 13:03:10  kernel: GEOM_MULTIPATH: adding da4 to PGXLOG/fd2b4cc1-6edb-11e2-a2d3-d4ae52e542ec
```

vdisc1 happens with it.

In CentOS 6 it works correctly.


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## Olostech (Feb 4, 2013)

Sorry, I forgot to put

```
FreeBSD OLODDB01 9.0-RELEASE FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE #0: Tue Jan  3 07:46:30 UTC 2012     [email]root@farrell.cse.buffalo.edu[/email]:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  amd64
```


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## mav@ (Feb 8, 2013)

I have feeling that you are trying to add different devices to single multipath. da1 and da4 have different serial numbers.


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## Olostech (Feb 11, 2013)

Let me try to explain better.
I have a MD3200, it contains two modules controllers. My server R815 has 2 HBA. Then have two cables connected to each HBA, but each cable goes to a different magnitude of MD3200, ie HBA1 -> cable 1 -> module 1 HBA1 -> cable 2 -> modulo 2, and consecutively with the second HBA .

So the MD3200 created 2 virtual disks, where each disk has its module as preferred (default is something).

I'll post the debug multipath CentOS, if you want I can give you more information of bsd.


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## mav@ (Feb 11, 2013)

I understand your configuration. What confuses me is that da0 and da1, that should be two different LUNs, have equal serial number, but da0 and da3, that should be the same LUN, have different. But that should not be critical, as gmultipath only checks on-disk metadata, but not serial numbers.

What's about "media size does not match label" messages, I guess it is result of partitioning raw disks before setting up multipath. `gmultipath label` uses last sector to store metadata and so available space is getting smaller by one sector. It is possible to use gmultipath without storing metadata, but it is much less automatic in operation.

I am not sure what is your original problem. If it is about wish to assign different priorities to different paths for each LUN to separate active and backup ones, unfortunately that is not very possible. You can specify path(s) to use in run time from gmultipath command line, but that information is not stored on disks and will be lost on reboot.


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## mav@ (Feb 15, 2013)

In some storages (I had none of such) master and backup controllers are not working simultaneously. It makes impossible for gmultipath to taste backup devices matadata because they just not responding to requests. That is bad situation that prevents automatic gmultipath mode from working. The only way in such case is to use `gmultipath add` command to add backup paths manually. But since it is not stored anywhere, you may need some additional scripting to automate it.


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## Olostech (Feb 18, 2013)

thank you very much


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