LUN is incorrectly detected as a snapshot on ESX 3.0 and 3.5 hosts

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• Unable to see the available datastores
• In the /var/log/vmkwarning logs, you see entries similar to:
  
  LVM: 5670: Device vmhbaH:T:LP is a snapshot:
  LVM: 5676: disk ID: <type Y1, len Y2, lun Y3, devType Y4, scsi Y5, h(id) Y6>
  LVM: 5678: m/d disk ID: <type X1, len X2, lun X3, devType X4, scsi X5, h(id) X6>
  WARNING: LVM: 4844: [vmhbaH:T:L:P] detected as a snapshot device. Disallowing access to the LUN since resignaturing is turned off.
  
  
• A rescan of the storage does not resolve this issue

Environment

VMware ESXi 3.5.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 3.5.x Installable
VMware ESX Server 3.5.x
VMware ESX Server 3.0.x

Resolution

This issue occurs if the presentation settings for the LUN are incorrect.

To resolve this issue, see the Setting Up SAN Storage Devices with ESX Server section of the SAN Configuration guide or contact your array vendor for the appropriate settings.

Note: A rescan after implementing the correct settings mounts the volume. A reboot is not required.

To workaround this issue, set the LVM.DisallowSnapshotLUN attribute to 0 and then perform a rescan.