HPE MSA Cannot See LUN?

Cannot See LUN KB ID 0001862

Problem

I finally got round to replacing the SAN on my test network, I setup the new one via direct cable connection (10Gbps iSCSI DAC). I created vDisks and volumes, presented those volumes. Setup iSCSI bindings in vSphere, all vanilla stuff.

ESX hosts could not see the storage LUNS, they could see the SAN, but ‘add datastore‘ showed me no available storage.

Solution: Cannot See LUN

Two days! That’s what this cost me, I’ve spent over 20 years deploying storage (mostly HPE) but an assortment of HPE, Dell, IBM, NetApp, and a score of cheap alternatives. I manually changed the iqn names in VMware, I proved connectivity from VMKernels to the storage array with vmping. I updated the controller and card firmware – nothing.

I got a trusted colleague on the gear remotely to check I’d not done anyhting stupid, he made some suggestions, still no progress. I opened an quesiton on Experts Exchange – lot’s of good advice but nothing worked.

Then after trawling through old HPE and VMware forum posts I found a link to a video, it was an Indian chap deploying some iSCSI volumes to a Windows server, even though I don’t speak Hindi, I thought “What the hell I’ll watch it, and make sure (once again) I had not done anything stupid.

Then while mapping the new volume, he did something so simple and so mind bogglingly easy to miss, everyone I’d spoken to had missed it also. When mapping a volume you create a LUN (in this example LUN 10) Set the rights to ‘read-write’ and apply.

See those green ticks over the iSCSI ports they DO NOT MEAN present the storage through those ports. They simply mean there’s a working cable in those ports.