Duplicate initiator error

[dbarajas01111]

I'm running into an issue with configuring the Array based Replication.

On Site A:

SRM 5.8 - Build 2336305

SRA 2.3.0 for Nimble storage

Physical:

BladeSystem c7000 Enclosure G2

ProLiant BL465c Gen8 -1

iSCSI:

iqn.1990-07.com.emulex:b4-b5-2f-58-57-11

iqn.1990-07.com.emulex:b4-b5-2f-58-57-11

ProLiant BL465c Gen8 - 2

iSCSI

iqn.1990-07.com.emulex:b4-b5-2f-58-e5-79

iqn.1990-07.com.emulex:b4-b5-2f-58-e5-79

ProLiant BL465c Gen8 - 3

On Site B:

SRM 5.8 - Build 2336305

SRA 2.3.0 for Nimble storage

Physical:

BladeSystem c7000 Enclosure G3

ProLiant BL465c Gen8 - 1

iSCSI

iqn.1990-07.com.emulex:38-63-bb-37-35-91

iqn.1990-07.com.emulex:38-63-bb-37-35-91

ProLiant BL465c Gen8 - 2

iSCSI

iqn.1990-07.com.emulex:38-63-bb-37-e6-b9

iqn.1990-07.com.emulex:38-63-bb-37-e6-b9

ProLiant BL465c Gen8 - 3

When trying to configure the Array replication Site B shows it's working fine. But on Site A I get a duplicate initiator error message.

Here is the following error on Site A BL465c - 1 error:

Discover Replicated Devices xx.domain.com Duplicate initiator 'iqn.1990-07.com.emulex:b4-b5-2f-58-57-12' found in SRA's 'discoverDevices' response.

2015-06-30T10:52:57.182-07:00 [02892 verbose 'PropertyProvider' opID=1fd9ba22] RecordOp ASSIGN: info.progress, dr.storage.ReplicatedArrayPair.discoverDevices16

2015-06-30T10:52:57.213-07:00 [02892 verbose 'Storage' opID=1fd9ba22] XML validation succeeded

2015-06-30T10:52:57.213-07:00 [02892 error 'Storage' opID=1fd9ba22] Duplicate initiator ID 'iqn.1990-07.com.emulex:b4-b5-2f-58-57-11' at (43:8):

--> <Initiator id="iqn.1990-07.com.emulex:b4-b5-2f-58-57-11" type="iSCSI"/>

2015-06-30T10:52:57.213-07:00 [02852 verbose 'PerformanceMonitor' opID=1fd9ba22] Performance monitor Token 0 of lock PersistableRWLock-3175 Locked took 7.488 seconds

2015-06-30T10:52:57.213-07:00 [02852 verbose 'PersistableRWLock' opID=1fd9ba22] Releasing Write lock 'PersistableRWLock-3175'

2015-06-30T10:52:57.213-07:00 [02852 verbose 'Storage' opID=1fd9ba22] Releasing read op lock on 'array-pair-3136'

2015-06-30T10:52:57.213-07:00 [02852 verbose 'PerformanceMonitor' opID=1fd9ba22] Performance monitor Token 0 of lock PersistableRWLock-3137 Locked took 7.504 seconds

2015-06-30T10:52:57.213-07:00 [02852 verbose 'PersistableRWLock' opID=1fd9ba22] Releasing Read lock 'PersistableRWLock-3137'

2015-06-30T10:52:57.213-07:00 [02852 info 'Storage' opID=1fd9ba22] Dr::Storage::VmomiLayer::DiscoverDevicesExecutor::DiscoveryComplete: discover devices completed

2015-06-30T10:52:57.213-07:00 [02852 error 'Storage' opID=1fd9ba22] Failed to discover devices at local site: (dr.storage.fault.DuplicateInitiator)

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Mattallford]

Hello,

I know this post is 6 months old so you probably have resolved it, but I came across the same thing yesterday so I thought I would post to provide the answer. It might help someone else in the future.

We also are using Nimble Storage arrays.

When managing Nimble storage, you create 'initiator groups' to control access to the LUNs / Volumes, as per any storage device. When using the iSCSI software initiator on the ESXi hosts you will obviously have 1 IQN for the HBA and 2 IP addresses (VM Kernel adapters) if you are set up properly with multipathing.

On the Nimble array, we created 2 entries in the initiator group per host, putting in the details of the IQN and the individual IP address.

Name	IQN	IP Address
Server1-1	iqn.1998-01.com.vmware:Server1-280206e1	172.17.1.10
Server1-2	iqn.1998-01.com.vmware:Server1-280206e1	172.17.1.11

While this worked fine for access to the LUNs, it created issues when setting up the array based replication in SRM using the SRA. The message you receive in the web client is as follows:

Duplicate initiator 'iqn.1998-01.com.vmware:Server1-280206e1' found in SRA's 'discoverDevices' response.

In the vmware-dr-xxx.log file found in C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager\Logs there was a tiny bit more info:

2016-01-13T09:39:10.757+11:00 [03508 info 'DrTask' opID=5cacf7dd] Task 'dr.storage.ReplicatedArrayPair.discoverDevices112' failed with error: (dr.storage.fault.DuplicateInitiator) {

-->    faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,

-->    command = "discoverDevices",

-->    responseXml = "<Initiator id="iqn.1998-01.com.vmware:Server1-280206e1" type="iSCSI"/>",

-->    id = "iqn.1998-01.com.vmware:Server1-280206e1",

-->    msg = ""

--> }

The problem was the fact that we had two entries in the initiator group with the same IQN. We changes the initiator group within the Nimble management interface to have one line per IQN, performed a rescan of the arrays within SRM and everything was OK.

Name	IQN	IP Address
Server1	iqn.1998-01.com.vmware:Server1-280206e1	*