1.6. Adding a Storage Device or Path

Procedure 1.3. Add a storage device or path

1. The first step in adding a storage device or path is to physically enable access to the new storage device, or a new path to an existing device. This is done using vendor-specific commands at the Fibre Channel or iSCSI storage server. When doing so, note the LUN value for the new storage that will be presented to your host. If the storage server is Fibre Channel, also take note of the World Wide Node Name (WWNN) of the storage server, and determine whether there is a single WWNN for all ports on the storage server. If this is not the case, note the World Wide Port Name (WWPN) for each port that will be used to access the new LUN.
2. Next, make the operating system aware of the new storage device, or path to an existing device. The recommended command to use is:

   # echo "c t l" > /sys/class/scsi_host/hosth/scan

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   In the previous command, h is the HBA number, c is the channel on the HBA, t is the SCSI target ID, and l is the LUN.

   Note

   The older form of this command, echo "scsi add-single-device 0 0 0 0" > /proc/scsi/scsi, is deprecated.
   1. In some Fibre Channel hardware, a newly created LUN on the RAID array may not be visible to the operating system until a Loop Initialization Protocol (LIP) operation is performed. Refer to Section 1.8, “Scanning Storage Interconnects” for instructions on how to do this.

      Important

      It will be necessary to stop I/O while this operation is executed if an LIP is required.
   2. If a new LUN has been added on the RAID array but is still not being configured by the operating system, confirm the list of LUNs being exported by the array using the sg_luns command, part of the sg3_utils package. This will issue the SCSI REPORT LUNS command to the RAID array and return a list of LUNs that are present.
   For Fibre Channel storage servers that implement a single WWNN for all ports, you can determine the correct h,c,and t values (i.e. HBA number, HBA channel, and SCSI target ID) by searching for the WWNN in sysfs. For example, if the WWNN of the storage server is 0x5006016090203181, use:

   # grep 5006016090203181 /sys/class/fc_transport/*/node_name 

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   This should display output similar to the following:

   /sys/class/fc_transport/target5:0:2/node_name:0x5006016090203181 
   /sys/class/fc_transport/target5:0:3/node_name:0x5006016090203181 
   /sys/class/fc_transport/target6:0:2/node_name:0x5006016090203181 
   /sys/class/fc_transport/target6:0:3/node_name:0x5006016090203181

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   This indicates there are four Fibre Channel routes to this target (two single-channel HBAs, each leading to two storage ports). Assuming a LUN value is 56, then the following command will configure the first path:

   # echo "0 2 56" > /sys/class/scsi_host/host5/scan

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   This must be done for each path to the new device.
   For Fibre Channel storage servers that do not implement a single WWNN for all ports, you can determine the correct HBA number, HBA channel, and SCSI target ID by searching for each of the WWPNs in sysfs.
   Another way to determine the HBA number, HBA channel, and SCSI target ID is to refer to another device that is already configured on the same path as the new device. This can be done with various commands, such as lsscsi, scsi_id, multipath -l, and ls -l /dev/disk/by-*. This information, plus the LUN number of the new device, can be used as shown above to probe and configure that path to the new device.
3. After adding all the SCSI paths to the device, execute the multipath command, and check to see that the device has been properly configured. At this point, the device can be added to md, LVM, mkfs, or mount, for example.