Troubleshooting: `MountVolume.SetUp failed for volume` due to multipathd on the node
| March 16, 2021
All Longhorn versions.
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"
This is caused by multipath creating a multipath device for any eligible device path including every Longhorn volume device not explicitly blacklisted.
If you don’t need multipath, then disable it.
If you need multipath, then follow these steps to configure it correctly:
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
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
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
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]
/etc/multipath.conf if it does not existdevnode "^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]
Recent articles
Troubleshooting: NoExecute taint prevents workloads from terminating© 2019-2025 Longhorn Authors | Documentation Distributed under CC-BY-4.0
© 2025 The Linux Foundation. All rights reserved. The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our Trademark Usage page.
