VMware ESXi 7 + iSCSI MP + ALUA Errors

[jasinc81]

Good morning! I have been testing TrueNAS-SCALE-22.02-RC.1-2 this past weekend on a system that I did an in-place upgrade from Core 12.0-UP6. I had 2 iSCSI LUNS presented to my ESXi cluster using this user-defined claim rule:

Code:

esxcli storage nmp satp rule add -s "VMW_SATP_ALUA" -V "TrueNAS" -M "iSCSI Disk" -P "VMW_PSP_RR" -O "iops=1" -e "TrueNAS iSCSI Claim Rule"

After upgrading to SCALE, my devices would no longer connect to my ESXi hosts, and would present this error in the vmkernel.log:

Code:

WARNING: NMP: nmp_SatpClaimPath:2193: SATP "VMW_SATP_ALUA" could not add  path "vmhba66:C1:T1:L10" for device "Unregistered Device". Error Not supported
WARNING: NMP: nmp_DeviceAlloc:2185: nmp_AddPathToDevice failed Not supported (195887136).
WARNING: NMP: nmp_DeviceAlloc:2205: Could not allocate NMP device.
WARNING: ScsiPath: 8604: Plugin 'NMP' had an error (Not supported) while claiming path 'vmhba66:C1:T1:L10'. Skipping the path.
ScsiClaimrule: 2039: Plugin NMP specified by claimrule 65535 was not able to claim path vmhba66:C1:T1:L10: Busy

I was able to get it to register if I remove the claim rule and create a new claim rule using VMW_SATP_DEFAULT_AA. I searched through the release notes, and couldn't find anything regarding ALUA and VMware support, but is this going to be introduced in later releases? Or will this be a paid/enterprise feature? Just wanted to make sure I wasn't doing something wrong.

Thanks for the help/guidance!

 

[morganL]

TrueNAS CORE and Enterprise used FreeBSD iSCSI that had been heavily customized for trueNAS and have been through VMware certification. They are very stable.

TrueNAS SCALE is a new iSCSI stack....it hasn't gone through certification.

I would stay on CORE/Enterprise for this application, unless you have a specific need for SCALE or want to help us with development and testing..

 

[jasinc81]

TrueNAS CORE and Enterprise used FreeBSD iSCSI that had been heavily customized for trueNAS and have been through VMware certification. They are very stable.

TrueNAS SCALE is a new iSCSI stack....it hasn't gone through certification.

I would stay on CORE/Enterprise for this application, unless you have a specific need for SCALE or want to help us with development and testing..

Thanks for the clarification, that's what I figured. However, I couldn't find anything in the release notes or documentation referencing that. This is a test box for me, so I'm more than happy to help with testing. Since I ran an upgrade from Core, do you think there may need to be some mention of iSCSI config in VMware breaking if using ALUA from Core? I did see the mention of Jails, which I wasn't using, but that might be a good FYI for those wanting to test Scale.

 

[morganL]

It will get more lab testing prior to the February Release.... I'll check on how we can improve documentation.

 

[jasinc81]

It will get more lab testing prior to the February Release.... I'll check on how we can improve documentation.

Sounds good. Let me know if I can help out in any way.

 

[5mall5nail5]

Did you ever find anything out about this? I had a TrueNAS Core setup working fine, upgraded to TrueNAS Scale, my iSCSI targets were up until I rebooted. I am thinking it's claim rule based but my paths to the devices are down.

So removing my claim rule brought the paths back up after a reboot. I set the iops policy to 1 manually on the NAA's. Testing now.

 

[morganL]

Did you ever find anything out about this? I had a TrueNAS Core setup working fine, upgraded to TrueNAS Scale, my iSCSI targets were up until I rebooted. I am thinking it's claim rule based but my paths to the devices are down.

I'd suggest starting a new thread with full details.