Troubleshooting: `MountVolume.SetUp failed for volume` due to multipathd on the node

| March 16, 2021

Applicable versions

All Longhorn versions.

Symptoms

The pod with the volume is not starting and encounters error messages in longhorn-csi-plugin:

time="2020-04-16T08:49:27Z" level=info msg="GRPC request: {\"target_path\":\"/var/lib/kubelet/pods/cf0a0b5b-106e-4793-a74a-28bfae21be1a/volumes/kubernetes.io~csi/pvc-d061512e-870a-4ece-bd45-2f04672d5256/mount\",\"volume_capability\":{\"AccessType\":{\"Mount\":{\"fs_type\":\"ext4\"}},\"access_mode\":{\"mode\":1}},\"volume_context\":{\"baseImage\":\"\",\"fromBackup\":\"\",\"numberOfReplicas\":\"3\",\"staleReplicaTimeout\":\"30\",\"storage.kubernetes.io/csiProvisionerIdentity\":\"1586958032802-8081-driver.longhorn.io\"},\"volume_id\":\"pvc-d061512e-870a-4ece-bd45-2f04672d5256\"}"
time="2020-04-16T08:49:27Z" level=info msg="NodeServer NodePublishVolume req: volume_id:\"pvc-d061512e-870a-4ece-bd45-2f04672d5256\" target_path:\"/var/lib/kubelet/pods/cf0a0b5b-106e-4793-a74a-28bfae21be1a/volumes/kubernetes.io~csi/pvc-d061512e-870a-4ece-bd45-2f04672d5256/mount\" volume_capability:<mount:<fs_type:\"ext4\" > access_mode:<mode:SINGLE_NODE_WRITER > > volume_context:<key:\"baseImage\" value:\"\" > volume_context:<key:\"fromBackup\" value:\"\" > volume_context:<key:\"numberOfReplicas\" value:\"3\" > volume_context:<key:\"staleReplicaTimeout\" value:\"30\" > volume_context:<key:\"storage.kubernetes.io/csiProvisionerIdentity\" value:\"1586958032802-8081-driver.longhorn.io\" > "
E0416 08:49:27.567704 1 mount_linux.go:143] Mount failed: exit status 32
Mounting command: mount
Mounting arguments: -t ext4 -o defaults /dev/longhorn/pvc-d061512e-870a-4ece-bd45-2f04672d5256 /var/lib/kubelet/pods/cf0a0b5b-106e-4793-a74a-28bfae21be1a/volumes/kubernetes.io~csi/pvc-d061512e-870a-4ece-bd45-2f04672d5256/mount
Output: mount: /var/lib/kubelet/pods/cf0a0b5b-106e-4793-a74a-28bfae21be1a/volumes/kubernetes.io~csi/pvc-d061512e-870a-4ece-bd45-2f04672d5256/mount: /dev/longhorn/pvc-d061512e-870a-4ece-bd45-2f04672d5256 already mounted or mount point busy.
E0416 08:49:27.576477 1 mount_linux.go:487] format of disk "/dev/longhorn/pvc-d061512e-870a-4ece-bd45-2f04672d5256" failed: type:("ext4") target:("/var/lib/kubelet/pods/cf0a0b5b-106e-4793-a74a-28bfae21be1a/volumes/kubernetes.io~csi/pvc-d061512e-870a-4ece-bd45-2f04672d5256/mount") options:(["defaults"])error:(exit status 1)
time="2020-04-16T08:49:27Z" level=error msg="GRPC error: rpc error: code = Internal desc = exit status 1"

Details

This is caused by multipath creating a multipath device for any eligible device path including every Longhorn volume device not explicitly blacklisted.

Troubleshooting

If you don’t need multipath, then disable it.

If you need multipath, then follow these steps to configure it correctly:

  1. Find the major:minor number of the Longhorn device. On the node, try ls -l /dev/longhorn/. The major:minor number will be shown as e.g. 8, 32 before the device name.
ls -l /dev/longhorn
brw-rw---- 1 root root 8, 32 Aug 10 21:50 pvc-39c0db31-628d-41d0-b05a-4568ec02e487
  1. Find what’s the device generated by Linux for the same major:minor number. Use ls -l /dev and find the device for the same major:minor number, e.g. /dev/sde.
brw-rw---- 1 root disk      8,  32 Aug 10 21:50 sdc
  1. Find the process. Use lsof to get the list of file handlers in use, then grep for the device name (e.g. sde or /dev/longhorn/xxx. You should find one there.
lsof | grep sdc
multipath 514292                              root    8r      BLK               8,32        0t0        534 /dev/sdc
multipath 514292 514297 multipath             root    8r      BLK               8,32        0t0        534 /dev/sdc
multipath 514292 514299 multipath             root    8r      BLK               8,32        0t0        534 /dev/sdc
multipath 514292 514300 multipath             root    8r      BLK               8,32        0t0        534 /dev/sdc
multipath 514292 514301 multipath             root    8r      BLK               8,32        0t0        534 /dev/sdc
multipath 514292 514302 multipath             root    8r      BLK               8,32        0t0        534 /dev/sdc
multipath 514292 514304 multipath             root    8r      BLK               8,32        0t0        534 /dev/sdc

Solution

Follow these steps to prevent the multipath daemon from adding additional block devices created by Longhorn.

First check devices created by Longhorn using lsblk:

root@localhost:~# lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda    8:0    0 79.5G  0 disk /
sdb    8:16   0  512M  0 disk [SWAP]
sdc    8:32   0    1G  0 disk /var/lib/kubelet/pods/c2c2b848-1f40-4727-8a52-03a74f9c76b9/volumes/kubernetes.io~csi/pvc-859bc3c9-faa8-4f54-85e4-b12935b5ae3c/mount
sdd    8:48   0    1G  0 disk /var/lib/kubelet/pods/063a181a-66ac-4644-8268-9215305f9b73/volumes/kubernetes.io~csi/pvc-837eb6ac-45fe-4de7-9c97-8d371eb02190/mount
sde    8:64   0    1G  0 disk /var/lib/kubelet/pods/4c80842d-7257-4b91-b668-bb5b111da003/volumes/kubernetes.io~csi/pvc-c01cee3e-f292-4979-b183-6546d6397fbd/mount
sdf    8:80   0    1G  0 disk /var/lib/kubelet/pods/052dadd9-042a-451c-9bb1-2d9418f0381f/volumes/kubernetes.io~csi/pvc-ba7a5c9a-d84d-4cb0-959d-3db39f34d81b/mount
sdg    8:96   0    1G  0 disk /var/lib/kubelet/pods/7399b073-c262-4963-8c7f-9e481272ea36/volumes/kubernetes.io~csi/pvc-2b122b42-141a-4181-b8fd-ce3cf91f6a64/mount
sdh    8:112  0    1G  0 disk /var/lib/kubelet/pods/a63d919d-201b-4eb1-9d84-6440926211a9/volumes/kubernetes.io~csi/pvc-b7731785-8364-42a8-9e7d-7516801ab7e0/mount
sdi    8:128  0    1G  0 disk /var/lib/kubelet/pods/3e056ee4-bab4-4230-9054-ab214bdf711f/volumes/kubernetes.io~csi/pvc-89d37a02-8480-4317-b0f1-f17b2a886d1d/mount

Notice that Longhorn device names start with /dev/sd[x]

  • Create the default configuration file /etc/multipath.conf if it does not exist
  • Add the following line to blacklist section devnode "^sd[a-z0-9]+"
blacklist {
    devnode "^sd[a-z0-9]+"
}
  • Restart multipath service

    systemctl restart multipathd.service

  • Verify that configuration is applied

    multipath -t

The default configurations for multipath blacklist section is preventing the following device names by default ^(ram|raw|loop|fd|md|dm-|sr|scd|st|dcssblk)[0-9] ^(td|hd|vd)[a-z]

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