Renamed storage device not shown on every host

[jmroth]

Hi,

Currently using VCSA 5.5 Build 1623101, I'm seeing this:

I'm trying to rename storage devices. I do this on the host called esxb10

You see, all is well.

Now I go to another host

You see some of the changes are there, some are not.

On even other hosts, none of the changes are there.

It is not the first time I see this. I'm now experiencing this on the appliance, I've had it before on Windows vCenters....

What is the problem here?

Thanks.

[schepp]

Hi,

vCenter has nothing to do with it, as the storage is directly mounted by the hosts.

Have you tried to rescan the storage HBAs?

Regards

Tim

[jmroth]

Oh, but look what I tried to accomplish the day before that: Setting LUN display name (programatically, for host and vcenter)

Going to the hosts directly doesn't work at all.

What I showed in the screenshot above exactly corresponds to what I see on the hosts using "esxcli storage core device list"...

I've tried refreshing, rescanning, everything. No luck.

[jmroth]

I'm also not sure why "vCenter has nothing to do with it".

If I have shared storage and I update the device name by going to a host -> Configuration -> Storage (for any host in vcenter) it is supposed to update the device name when I look at any host, isn't it? So, vCenter very well plays some role here.

I'm indeed not sure if the device name is something solely stored on the hosts or also in the vCenter DB....

Anyway, what happens in my case, I find strange.

[jmroth]

I've tried to debug this together with support.

What they found already were different VML IDs on different hosts for the same datastore/LUN.

Indeed, in vCenter, when you go to a host, then select "Storage Views", then Reports -> Show all SCSI Volumes (LUNs) you see an ID that is some SCSI info concatenated by the naa ID.

They do indeed differ in my case from host to host for several LUNs.

Probably, the "SCSI ID" as seen in vCenter is generated by the host the *first* time it sees the LUNs, and even when the LUN ID later changes, the SCSI ID remains the same.

And I also assume the name you give to the device is linked to the SCSI ID. That's probably why the names are not updated everywhere: the SCSI IDs are not the same everywhere.