Multipathing Considerations

Before you change multipathing configuration note the following considerations. Then follow the instructions for your machine architecture (SPARC or x86) described in the subsequent sections. Some devices need to be properly configured to work with the multipathing software. Refer to your storage array documentation for details on the device specific configuration for your device.

• Device Specific Considerations

• Device Name Change Considerations

In the /dev and /devices trees, multipath-enabled devices receive new names that indicate that they are under multipath control. A device therefore will have a different name from its original name when it is under multipath control.

Device name with multipath disabled:

/dev/dsk/c1t1d0s0

Device name with multipath enabled:

/dev/dsk/c0t60003BA27D5170003E5D2A7A0007F3D2d0s0

Therefore, applications that use device names directly must be configured to use the new names whenever you change multipath configuration from disabled to enabled or vice-versa.

The system’s /etc/vfstab file and the dump configuration also contain references to device names. On both SPARC and x86/x64-based systems the stmsboot(1m) command described in the following sections automatically updates the /etc/vfstab file dump configuration with the new device names. If you have application-dependent file systems which are not listed in the file /etc/vfstab, you can use the stmsboot command to determine the mapping between the old and new device paths.

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Caution - if you have run devfsadm -C or performed a reconfiguration reboot then the old device paths will not exist and the stmsboot -L command will fail to provide this information.

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