Device-mapper-multipath reporting "error attaching hardware handler" when EMC SAN configured in Active-Active Mode on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5

Solution Verified - Updated -

Issue

  • RHEL 5.5 can not boot up on multipath with emc cx120 storage. EMC storage path is configured with active, active path.

    • System will boot with RHEL 5.4 (active/active OR active/standby) and RHEL 5.5 on active/standby mode

  • When attempting to boot, the following output is displayed:

        Red Hat nash version 5.1.19.6 starting
    device-mapper: table: 253:0: multipath: error attaching hardware handler
    device-mapper: table: 253:0: multipath: error attaching hardware handler
    device-mapper: table: 253:0: multipath: error attaching hardware handler
    device-mapper: table: 253:0: multipath: error attaching hardware handler
    No devices found
    Unable to access resume device (/dev/mapper/mpath0p2)
    mount: could not find filesystem '/dev/root'
    setuproot: moving /dev failed: No such file or directory
    setuproot: error mounting /proc: No such file or directory
    setuproot: error mounting /sys: no such file or directory
    switchroot: mount failed: No such file or directory
    Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5

    • kernel-2.6.18-194.el5

  • Multipath'd boot-from-SAN root device (not an absolute requirement)

  • EMC CX120 SAN

    • LUN's configured in "Active-Active" mode.  Active-Passive mode LUN's do not have this issue.

    • Other EMC SAN models that report devices in /proc/scsi/scsi as any of :

                  {"DGC", "RAID"}
            {"DGC", "DISK"}
            {"DGC", "VRAID"}

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