LDOM: VxVM vxdmp V-5-3-0 dmp_dev_close: Close on device messages reported

Problem

The Veritas product is reporting "VxVM vxdmp V-5-3-0 dmp_dev_close: Close on device" messages.
 

LDOMs known as Oracle VM Server for Sparc
 
Oracle's server virtualization and partitioning technology for SPARC. Provides the ability to split a single physical system into multiple, independent virtual systems (known as logical domains).
 
Figure 1.0

Enables a system to run and deploy different Operating System instances simultaneously on a single server

Error Message

Sample error messages:
 

WARNING: VxVM vxdmp V-5-3-0 dmp_dev_close: Close on device 0xf200000042 failed with status 16
WARNING: VxVM vxdmp V-5-3-0 dmp_dev_close: Close on device 0xf200000047 failed with status 16
WARNING: VxVM vxdmp V-5-3-0 dmp_dev_close: Close on device 0xf200000027 failed with status 16
WARNING: VxVM vxdmp V-5-3-0 dmp_dev_close: Close on device 0xf200000387 failed with status 16
WARNING: VxVM vxdmp V-5-3-0 dmp_dev_close: Close on device 0xf200000752 failed with status 16

Cause

The issue was reproduced using an LDOM configuration, however, can apply to other environments also.

* 3969965 (Tracking ID: 3861544)

SYMPTOM:

For Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) labelled disks, in some cases Dynamic Multipathing(DMP) disables the disks for I/Os when one of its controller(switch) fails.

DESCRIPTION:

When an open is issued on disk, DMP tries to perform open operation on the disks through all of its path.

When one of its controller(switch) fails the paths going through that controller can still be in active state for short time.

In case of an EFI labelled disk when an open is issued on the failed path (path failed because controller is down), DMP returns an error even though the open through other paths(available paths) of disk might succeed.

And hence we see the disk as faulted and unavailable for I/Os.

RESOLUTION:

More code changes are done so that available paths can be used to  perform open operation if some of the paths are unavailable.

Solution

Veritas engineering have created Private Hot-fix for Solaris 11. Please contact Veritas technical support to obtain the private hot-fix

Volume Manager 6.2.1 Hot Fix 802
 

The Private hot-fix needs to be installed in the I/O domains and eventually the LDOM GUESTs (less critical).
 
The fix will allow the Virtual Disk Backend (vdsdev) to be presented using Veritas DMP.
 
The fix needs to be applied to the control (Primary) & service (if configured) domain(s).
 
If you also have a service I/O domain, presenting the same physical device paths up into the GUEST LDOM domains, no downtime should be encountered for the GUEST domains.
 
Please ensure the vdc.conf has been correctly populated with the virtual disk IDs within the LDOM GUEST domains, so DMP works correctly.
 
 
LDOM: Oracle VM Server for SPARC - Solaris 11.3 SRU 18.0.6 provides a design change to handle the loss of Primary (Control) and Service I/O Domains when using Veritas DMP
 
https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.100033972