MPIO path failures with SLES10 SP3 QLogic driver

This document (7008102) is provided subject to the disclaimer at the end of this document.

Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 Service Pack 3

Situation

In some SLES10 SP3 environments with QLogic host bus adapters, failed multipath (MPIO) paths may not be reinstated properly after the link has been reestablished. This is most commonly seen when testing MPIO by removing one path (either by removing fibre cabling, or powering down a fibre switch), then re-enabling the path after MPIO has marked the path as faulty.

During the initial failure, MPIO is correctly marking the path as faulty (as seen through `multipath -l`), but due to a QLogic driver problem, the path is not being detected as active after the failure.

Resolution

In order to resolve this problem, updated QLogic drivers (version 8.03.00.14.10.3-k4) have been made available for SLES10 SP3 at the following url:

http://drivers.suse.com/driver-process/pub/update/QLogic/sle10sp3/common

(The driver RPMs can be found in i586 and x86_64 subdirectories.)

Disclaimer

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