Obtaining LUN pathing information for ESXi hosts

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article explains using tools to determine LUN pathing information for ESXi hosts.

For information troubleshooting LUN connectivity issues, see Troubleshooting LUN connectivity issues on ESXi host

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5.x

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7.x

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0.x

VMware vSphere ESXi  8.0.x

VMware vCenter Server 6.5.x

VMware vCenter Server 6.7.x

VMware vCenter Server 7.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 8.0.x

 

Resolution

There are two methods used to obtain the multipath information from the ESX host:

• ESXi command line – use the command line to obtain the multipath information when performing troubleshooting procedures.
• vSphere Client/vSphere Web Client – use this option when you are performing system maintenance.

 

ESXi Command line

 

To obtain LUN multipathing information from the ESXi host command line:

1. Log in to the ESXi host console.
2. Type esxcli storage core path list to get detailed information regarding the paths.
   
   For example
   fc.<uuid1>-fc.<uuid2>-naa.###########################130
   UID: fc.<uuid1>-fc.<uuid2>-naa.###########################130
   Runtime Name: vmhba1:C0:T0:L0
   Device: naa.###########################130
   Device Display Name: EMC Fibre Channel Disk (naa.###########################130)
   Adapter: vmhba1
   Channel: 0
   Target: 0
   LUN: 0
   Plugin: NMP
   State: active
   Transport: fc
   Adapter Identifier: fc.<uuid1>
   Target Identifier: fc.<uuid2>
   Adapter Transport Details: WWNN: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx WWPN: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
   Target Transport Details: WWNN: <WWNN> WWPN: <WWPN>
    
3. Type esxcli storage core path list -d naaID to list the detailed information of the corresponding paths for a specific device.
    
4. The command esxcli storage nmp device list lists the LUN multipathing information:
   
   naa.###########################130
   Device Display Name: EMC Fibre Channel Disk (naa.###########################130)
   Storage Array Type: VMW_SATP_SYMM
   Storage Array Type Device Config: SATP VMW_SATP_SYMM does not support device configuration.
   Path Selection Policy: VMW_PSP_FIXED
   Path Selection Policy Device Config: {preferred=vmhba0:C0:T1:L0;current=vmhba0:C0:T1:L0}
   Path Selection Policy Device Custom Config:
   Working Paths: vmhba0:C0:T1:L0
   
   Notes:

• For information on multipathing and path selection options, see  VMware Multipathing policies in ESXi/ESX  
• If using Round Robin Multipathing Policy, in the output presented on step 4, you see in the "Working Paths" the paths that are presented as active by the storage array.
• If a Connect to local host failed: Connection failure message is received, the hostd management agent process may not be running, which is required to use esxcli. In this situation, you can use localcli instead of esxcli.
• For more information, see the Command Line Reference Guide  

 

vSphere Client

To obtain multipath settings for your storage in the HTML5 client:

1. Select an ESXi host, and click in the Configure tab.
2. Click in Storage Devices.
3. Select the storage device that you want to verify.
4. Scroll down in the Properties tab and click in "Edit multipathing...".

 

For information on multipathing options, see VMware Multipathing policies in ESXi/ESX .

Additional Information

For more information, see the documentation for your version of ESX and consult the Storage/SAN Compatibility Guide.

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Changing the default pathing policy for new/existing LUNs