VMware iSCSI initiator does not see iSCSI target from Dell MD SAN and causes a login failure error

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Unable to rescan from iSCSI initiator and see any drives.
• ESX/ESXi host indicates that the task is in progress, but then it times out.
• While connecting, the MD3600i event log shows the error:
  
  Login failure (Event 1808)
  
  
• The MD3600i has virtual drives and host group configured and sees the host port identifier before configuring the Host Group, and lets you associate the identifier directly to the Host Group when prompted, but the ESX/ESXi hosts do not see the new LUNs after a rescan.
• The /var/log/syslog file may contain errors similar to:
  
  2012-10-05T11:36:40Z iscsid: discovery_sendtargets::Running discovery on IFACE default(iscsi_vmk) (drec.transport=iscsi_vmk)
  2012-10-05T11:36:45Z iscsid: connection failed for discovery (err = Interrupted system call)!
  2012-10-05T11:36:45Z iscsid: connection to discovery address 172.16.20.10 failed
  2012-10-05T11:36:45Z iscsid: connection login retries (reopen_max) 5 exceeded
  2012-10-05T11:36:45Z iscsid: discovery_sendtargets::Filtered out IFACE bnx2i-d4bed9fbaf83@vmk1(bnx2i-d4bed9fbaf83) (drec.transport=iscsi_vmk)
  2012-10-05T11:36:45Z iscsid: discovery_sendtargets::Filtered out IFACE bnx2i-d4bed9fbaf85@vmk2(bnx2i-d4bed9fbaf85) (drec.transport=iscsi_vmk)
  2012-10-05T11:36:45Z iscsid: DISCOVERY: transport_name=iscsi_vmk Pending=0 Failed=
  
  
• The /var/log/vobd.log file may contain errors similar to:
  
  2012-10-05T11:36:45.894Z: [iscsiCorrelator] 3280457495376us: [vob.iscsi.discovery.connect.error] discovery failure on vmhba37 to 172.16.20.10 because of a network connection failure.
  2012-10-05T11:36:45.894Z: [iscsiCorrelator] 3280460495927us: [esx.problem.storage.iscsi.discovery.connect.error] iSCSI discovery to 172.16.20.10 on vmhba37 failed. The iSCSI Initiator could not establish a network connection to the discovery address.

Environment

VMware ESX 4.0.x
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Embedded
VMware ESX 4.1.x
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Installable
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Installable

Cause

This issue can occur if the option disallow unnamed discovery in the iSCSI config on the Dell MD36xx is enabled and the iSCSI initiator's auto-generated host port identifier is longer than 31 characters.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, ensure that the option disallow unnamed discovery in the iSCSI config on the Dell MD36xx is disabled, then rescan the adapter from the to see the newly presented LUNs.

Additional Information

For a sample configuration of VMware ESX 4.0 and PowerVault MD3000i, see the Dell TechCenter Virtualization wiki article VMware ESX 4.0 and PowerVault MD3000i.

For related information, see the Dell technical white paper Dell™ PowerVault™ MD32xxi/MD36xxi Deployment Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server.