Filesystem goes read-only in VMware

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 GA
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 GA
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9

Situation

Linux running as a VMware guest OS.
Linux guest uses SAN or iSCSI storage.
File system is switched to read-only in the event of busy I/O retry or path failover.

Resolution

SUSE Linux Enterprise 10

This issue has been fixed as of the Service Pack 1 kernel (version 2.6.16.46-0.12).

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9

This issue has been fixed as of kernel 2.6.5-7.286. A fixed kernel is included in SLES9 Service Pack 4.

Additional Information

This root cause of this issue is the way that the MPI_SCSI_STATUS_BUSY condition was propagated through the kernel's storage stack.

This issue is also documented by VMware in the VMware knowledge base article 51306, RHEL4 U3, RHEL4 U4, SLES9 SP3, and SLES10 File Systems Might Become Read-Only.

Formerly known as TID 3584352.

Disclaimer

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