38
SR type device-config parameter, in order of
dependency
Can be
probed?
Required for sr-create?
provision-type Yes No
protocol Yes No
provision-options Yes No
raid-type Yes No
*Aggregate probing is only possible at sr-create time. It needs to be done there so that the aggregate can be specified at the point that the SR is created.
†Storage pool probing is only possible at sr-create time. It needs to be done there so that the aggregate can be specified at the point that the SR
is created.
‡If the username, password, or port configuration of the StorageLink service are changed from the default value then the appropriate parameter
and value must be specified.
Storage Multipathing
Dynamic multipathing support is available for Fibre Channel and iSCSI storage backends. By default, it uses
round-robin mode load balancing, so both routes have active traffic on them during normal operation. You
can enable multipathing in XenCenter or on the xe CLI.
Before attempting to enable multipathing, verify that multiple targets are available on your storage server.
For example, an iSCSI storage backend queried for sendtargets on a given portal should return multiple
targets, as in the following example:
iscsiadm -m discovery --type sendtargets --portal 192.168.0.161
192.168.0.161:3260,1 iqn.strawberry:litchie
192.168.0.204:3260,2 iqn.strawberry:litchie

To enable storage multipathing using the xe CLI

1. Unplug all PBDs on the host:
xe pbd-unplug uuid=<pbd_uuid>
2. Set the host's other-config:multipathing parameter:
xe host-param-set other-config:multipathing=true uuid=host_uuid
3. Set the host's other-config:multipathhandle parameter to dmp:
xe host-param-set other-config:multipathhandle=dmp uuid=host_uuid
4. If there are existing SRs on the host running in single path mode but that have multiple paths:
• Migrate or suspend any running guests with virtual disks in affected the SRs
• Unplug and re-plug the PBD of any affected SRs to reconnect them using multipathing:
xe pbd-plug uuid=<pbd_uuid>
To disable multipathing, first unplug your VBDs, set the host other-config:multipathing
parameter to false and then replug your PBDs as described above. Do not modify the other-
config:multipathhandle parameter as this will be done automatically.
Multipath support in XenServer is based on the device-mapper multipathd components. Activation and
deactivation of multipath nodes is handled automatically by the Storage Manager API. Unlike the standard