How FC Storage Appears in Linux
FC Fabric
└── HBA Driver (lpfc / qla2xxx)
└── SCSI Mid-Layer
└── SCSI Disk (sdX — one per path)
└── dm-multipath
└── /dev/mapper/mpathX ← application uses this
└── LVM (optional)
Key points:
- Each FC path presents as an independent
sdXdevice - dm-multipath aggregates all
sdXdevices for the same LUN into/dev/mapper/mpathX - Always target
/dev/mapper/devices, never rawsdXpaths - ALUA identifies preferred (active/optimized) vs. available (active/non-optimized) paths