6.5

Table Of Contents
Figure 44. FC Multipathing
storage array
SP1 SP2
switch switch
HBA2 HBA1 HBA3 HBA4
Host 1
Host 2
If SP1 or the link between SP1 and the switch breaks, SP2 takes over and provides the connection between
the switch and the storage device. This process is called SP failover. ESXi multipathing supports HBA and
SP failover.
After you have set up your hardware to support multipathing, you can use the vSphere Web Client or vCLI
commands to list and manage paths. You can perform the following tasks.
n
List path information with vicfg-mpath or esxcli storage core path. See “Listing Path Information,”
on page 51.
n
Change path state with vicfg-mpath or esxcli storage core path. See “Changing the State of a Path,”
on page 53.
n
Change path policies with ESXCLI. See “Set Policy Details for Devices that Use Round Robin,” on
page 56.
n
Mask paths with ESXCLI. See the vSphere Storage documentation.
n
Manipulate the rules that match paths to multipathing plugins to newly discovered devices with esxcli
claimrule. See “Managing Claim Rules,” on page 110.
n
Run or rerun claim rules or unclaim paths. See “Managing Claim Rules,” on page 110.
n
Rescan with vicfg-rescan. See “Scanning Storage Adapters,” on page 66.
Listing Path Information
You can list path information with ESXCLI or with vicfg-mpath.
Listing Path Information with ESXCLI
You can run esxcli storage core path to display information about Fibre Channel or iSCSI LUNs.
I Use industry-standard device names, with format eui.xxx or naa.xxx to ensure consistency. Do
not use VML LUN names unless device names are not available.
Names of virtual machine HBAs are not guaranteed to be valid across reboots.
Chapter 4 Managing Storage
VMware, Inc. 51