SLES 10 SP3 becomes unresponsive handling iSCSI asynchronous logouts

This document (7005016) is provided subject to the disclaimer at the end of this document.

Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 Service Pack 3

Situation

A host server is setup with SLES10 SP3 using iSCSI storage on an EqualLogic PS 5000. After some time thesystem may become unresponsive. When the system becomes unresponsive, access to the server over the network fails. Pings are unresponsive and the GUI console is also frozen. This only occurs when the iSCSI SAN is configured to use the iSCSI asynchronous logout mechanism to load balance between multiple iSCSI SANs that are part of the same group.

Resolution

This issue is caused by a bug in the open-iscsi stack in the kernel. It is resolved in kernel version 2.6.16.60-0.58.1 or newer.

Additional Information

Note that this issue is not specific to EqualLogic storage arrays, but could occur with any iSCSI storage solution that is configured to use asynchronous logouts for load balancing.

Disclaimer

This Support Knowledgebase provides a valuable tool for SUSE customers and parties interested in our products and solutions to acquire information, ideas and learn from one another. Materials are provided for informational, personal or non-commercial use within your organization and are presented "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND.