System information

Procedure
1 Open the Virtual Machine Properties dialog box.
Option Action
New virtual machine
For a new virtual machine, after creating the virtual machine, on the Ready
to Complete New Virtual Machine page select the Edit the virtual machine
settings before submitting the creation task checkbox, and click
Continue.
Existing virtual machine
For an existing virtual machine, select the virtual machine from the inventory
panel, and click the Edit Settings link.
2 Select the Options tab.
3 Select Fibre Channel NPIV.
4 In the dialog box that opens, select one of the following options:
Option Description
Leave unchanged
The existing WWN assignments are retained. The read-only WWN
Assignments section of this dialog box displays the node and port values of
any existing WWN assignments.
Generate new WWNs
New WWNs are generated and assigned to the virtual machine, overwriting
any existing WWNs (those of the HBA itself are unaffected).
Remove WWN assignment
The WWNs assigned to the virtual machine are removed and it uses the HBA
WWNs to access the storage LUN. This option is not available if you are
creating a new virtual machine.
CAUTION Removing or changing a virtual machine’s existing WWN
assignments causes it to lose connectivity to the storage LUNs
5 Click OK to save your changes.
Path Scanning and Claiming
When you start your ESX/ESXi host or rescan your storage adapter, the host discovers all physical paths to
storage devices available to the host. Based on a set of claim rules defined in the /etc/vmware/esx.conf file,
the host determines which multipathing plugin (MPP) should claim the paths to a particular device and become
responsible for managing the multipathing support for the device.
By default, the host performs a periodic path evaluation every 5 minutes causing any unclaimed paths to be
claimed by the appropriate MPP.
The claim rules are numbered. For each physical path, the host runs through the claim rules starting with the
lowest number first. The attributes of the physical path are compared to the path specification in the claim rule.
If there is a match, the host assigns the MPP specified in the claim rule to manage the physical path. This
continues until all physical paths are claimed by corresponding MPPs, either third-party multipathing plugins
or the native multipathing plugin (NMP).
For the paths managed by the NMP module, a second set of claim rules is applied. These rules determine which
SATP should be used to manage the paths from a specific array type, and which PSP is to be used for each
storage device. For example, for a storage device that belongs to the EMC CLARiiON CX storage family, the
default SATP is VMW_SATP_CX and the default PSP is Most Recently Used.
Use the vSphere Client to view which SATP and PSP the host is using for a specific storage device and the
status of all available paths for this storage device. If needed, you can change the default VMware PSP using
the vSphere Client. To change the default SATP, you need to modify claim rules using the vSphere CLI.
Fibre Channel SAN Configuration Guide
60 VMware, Inc.