[SOLVED] PROBLEM: seeing every SAN lun 4 times

[smashingpumpkin]

Hello all.

I'm new to these forums.

I have bumped into a rather bizarre problem on a redhat system at work:

I have mapped 10 LUNS to a server.
The server has 2 HBAs, but the luns were mapped only to 1 HBA,
and only one HBA is connected with a fibre cable.
Every lun has only 1 path,
the storage array management software (hitachi storage)
confirms this.

However, instead of 10 luns, I am seeing 40 luns!

- this is the output of the command ll /dev/sd*:
ll /dev/sd*
brw-r----- 1 root disk 8, 0 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sda
brw-r----- 1 root disk 8, 1 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sda1
brw-r----- 1 root disk 8, 2 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sda2
brw-r----- 1 root disk 8, 3 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sda3
brw-r----- 1 root disk 65, 160 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdaa
brw-r----- 1 root disk 65, 176 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdab
brw-r----- 1 root disk 65, 192 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdac
brw-r----- 1 root disk 65, 208 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdad
brw-r----- 1 root disk 65, 224 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdae
brw-r----- 1 root disk 65, 240 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdaf
brw-r----- 1 root disk 66, 0 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdag
brw-r----- 1 root disk 66, 16 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdah
brw-r----- 1 root disk 66, 32 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdai
brw-r----- 1 root disk 66, 48 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdaj
brw-r----- 1 root disk 66, 64 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdak
brw-r----- 1 root disk 66, 80 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdal
brw-r----- 1 root disk 66, 96 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdam
brw-r----- 1 root disk 66, 112 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdan
brw-r----- 1 root disk 66, 128 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdao
brw-r----- 1 root disk 66, 144 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdap
brw-r----- 1 root disk 8, 16 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdb
brw-r----- 1 root disk 8, 32 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdc
brw-r----- 1 root disk 8, 48 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdd
brw-r----- 1 root disk 8, 64 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sde
brw-r----- 1 root disk 8, 80 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdf
brw-r----- 1 root disk 8, 96 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdg
brw-r----- 1 root disk 8, 112 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdh
brw-r----- 1 root disk 8, 128 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdi
brw-r----- 1 root disk 8, 144 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdj
brw-r----- 1 root disk 8, 160 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdk
brw-r----- 1 root disk 8, 176 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdl
brw-r----- 1 root disk 8, 192 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdm
brw-r----- 1 root disk 8, 208 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdn
brw-r----- 1 root disk 8, 224 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdo
brw-r----- 1 root disk 8, 240 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdp
brw-r----- 1 root disk 65, 0 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdq
brw-r----- 1 root disk 65, 16 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdr
brw-r----- 1 root disk 65, 32 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sds
brw-r----- 1 root disk 65, 48 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdt
brw-r----- 1 root disk 65, 64 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdu
brw-r----- 1 root disk 65, 80 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdv
brw-r----- 1 root disk 65, 96 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdw
brw-r----- 1 root disk 65, 112 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdx
brw-r----- 1 root disk 65, 128 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdy
brw-r----- 1 root disk 65, 144 Mar 17 15:11 /dev/sdz

sda and sdb are internal disks.
all the other /dev/sd* devices were detected from the san: 40 luns.

It can not be a multipath issue,
because there is only one path for every lun.

I have not configured / installed any third party multipathing software,
and the OS was cleanly installed.

So for every lun, I have 4 corresponding /dev/sd* entries,
all pointing to the same lun...

The os version is: RHEL 5.4 (Tikanga)

Any ideas anyone

[smashingpumpkin]

I was able to solve the problem by changing the host group setting on the hitachi lightning storage.

It was changed from standard -> AIX.

Though in the hitachi documentation, it is stated that host group type "standard" should be used for linux hosts, a host group of type "AIX" seems to be the only one that advertises luns correctly to RHEL.

Ah well,

solved