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520 Views 4 Replies Last post: Jan 17, 2010 8:18 PM by weinstein5

dekkar

16 posts since
May 17, 2009

Currently Being Moderated

Jan 17, 2010 3:15 PM

Deleting a LUN

Hello, over the weekend I planned to remove a LUN that was wasting space on our SAN.

I vmotioned off the few VMs that were on it, and then removed the datastore.

I presumed that after this I could take the lun offline (using the SAN console) and then refresh the storage adapters, and the lun would be gone.

I did this, and half the the VMs running on our servers kind of went into this disconnected state. They werent powered off or anything, but I couldnt ping them or manage them at all..... I put the lun back to the online state, and everything started working again.

I then tried to delete the "static discovery" record of the lun in the iSCSI settings of each VM... The same thing happened, and even one of our ESXi boxes then kind of went offline, HA fell over and all hell broke loose.

I have since reverted all of this and everything is now working, but I still need to remove this lun.

Anyone have any idea why removing an empty lun is causing sooo much drama?

Tags: lun, datastore, iscsi, esxi, vsphere

weinstein5

10,610 posts since
Nov 19, 2005

Currently Being Moderated

1. Jan 17, 2010 7:12 PM

in response to: dekkar

Re: Deleting a LUN

Did you vmotion or storage vmotion? If it was vmotion the virtual machines owuld not have moved form the LUN - use storage vmotion to move the vms off to another LUN and then from the storage option on the configuration tab for any of the ESX hosts that access this LUN select the VMFS datastore and remove datastore - you then should be able to remoce the LUN

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dekkar

16 posts since
May 17, 2009

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2. Jan 17, 2010 7:55 PM

in response to: weinstein5

Re: Deleting a LUN

Yes, it was storage vmotion I used. I browsed the datastore to ensure it was empty.

I did also remove the datastore. The only thing left in vsphere that refers to the lun is its iSCSI target in the properties of the iSCSI initiator (under static discovery tab)..

But as I said, when I remove this, half the servers become disconnected.... Uunable to ping or open console... and even one of the ESX boxes became disconnected from vshpere, I had to go manage it directly... It seems as though there is some kind of dependancy on the lun in vsphere somewhere.

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weinstein5

10,610 posts since
Nov 19, 2005

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3. Jan 17, 2010 8:18 PM

in response to: dekkar

Re: Deleting a LUN

once you have removed the VMFS datastore - you can stop presenting the LUN from the SAN - once that is done you will need to go back to the vSphere client and rescan the SAN and the LUN should no longer be identified on the ESX host -

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dekkar

16 posts since
May 17, 2009

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4. Jan 17, 2010 8:29 PM

in response to: weinstein5

Re: Deleting a LUN

As crazy as it sounds, those exact steps are what cause the problem...... After hunting around I have found the following bug:

http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2009/12/an-important-vsphere-4-storage-bug-and-workaround.html

This looks like the same symptoms I am experiencing..... Maybe I should contact Vmware, as its their bug.....

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