5.9 Scanning for New Devices without Rebooting

If your system has already been configured for multipathing and you later need to add more storage to the SAN, you can use the rescan-scsi-bus.sh script to scan for the new devices. By default, this script scans all HBAs with typical LUN ranges.

Syntax

rescan-scsi-bus.sh [options] [host [host ...]]

You can specify hosts on the command line (deprecated), or use the --hosts=LIST option (recommended).

Options

For most storage subsystems, the script can be run successfully without options. However, some special cases might need to use one or more of the following parameters for the rescan-scsi-bus.sh script:

Option

Description

-l

Activates scanning for LUNs 0-7. [Default: 0]

-L NUM

Activates scanning for LUNs 0 to NUM. [Default: 0]

-w

Scans for target device IDs 0 to 15. [Default: 0 to 7]

-c

Enables scanning of channels 0 or 1. [Default: 0]

-r
--remove

Enables removing of devices. [Default: Disabled]

-i
--issueLip

Issues a Fibre Channel LIP reset. [Default: Disabled]

--forcerescan

Rescans existing devices.

--forceremove

Removes and re-adds every device. (DANGEROUS)

--nooptscan

Don’t stop looking for LUNs if 0 is not found.

--color

Use colored prefixes OLD/NEW/DEL.

--hosts=LIST

Scans only hosts in LIST, where LIST is a comma-separated list of single values and ranges. No spaces are allowed.

--hosts=A[-B][,C[-D]]
--channels=LIST

Scans only channels in LIST, where LIST is a comma-separated list of single values and ranges. No spaces are allowed. 

--channels=A[-B][,C[-D]]
--ids=LIST

Scans only target IDs in LIST, where LIST is a comma-separated list of single values and ranges. No spaces are allowed. 

--ids=A[-B][,C[-D]]
--luns=LIST

Scans only LUNs in LIST, where LIST is a comma-separated list of single values and ranges. No spaces are allowed.

--luns=A[-B][,C[-D]]

Procedure

Use the following procedure to scan the devices and make them available to multipathing without rebooting the system.

  1. On the storage subsystem, use the vendor’s tools to allocate the device and update its access control settings to allow the Linux system access to the new storage. Refer to the vendor’s documentation for details.

  2. Scan all targets for a host to make its new device known to the middle layer of the Linux kernel’s SCSI subsystem. At a terminal console prompt, enter

    rescan-scsi-bus.sh [options]
    
  3. Check for scanning progress in the system log (the /var/log/messages file). At a terminal console prompt, enter

    tail -30 /var/log/messages
    

    This command displays the last 30 lines of the log. For example:

    # tail -30 /var/log/messages
    . . .
    Feb 14 01:03 kernel: SCSI device sde: 81920000
    Feb 14 01:03 kernel: SCSI device sdf: 81920000
    Feb 14 01:03 multipathd: sde: path checker registered
    Feb 14 01:03 multipathd: sdf: path checker registered
    Feb 14 01:03 multipathd: mpath4: event checker started
    Feb 14 01:03 multipathd: mpath5: event checker started
    Feb 14 01:03:multipathd: mpath4: remaining active paths: 1
    Feb 14 01:03 multipathd: mpath5: remaining active paths: 1
    
  4. Repeat Step 2 through Step 3 to add paths through other HBA adapters on the Linux system that are connected to the new device.

  5. Run the multipath command to recognize the devices for DM-MP configuration. At a terminal console prompt, enter

    multipath
    

    You can now configure the new device for multipathing.