[Bug 1611945] Re: /dev/disk/by-path not properly populated for (e)SATA port multiplier disks

[Chris Siebenmann]

In 16.04 (and I think everywhere), /sys is sysfs, so its contents are
generated by the kernel, device drivers, and so on. Udev looks at sysfs
in order to determine device information (eg ATA port number) that it
uses to create everything else. How hardware is represented in sysfs can
change over kernel versions, as we see here.

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Title:
  /dev/disk/by-path not properly populated for (e)SATA port multiplier
  disks

Status in systemd package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  We have a just-installed Ubuntu 16.04 LTS machine with a number of
  disks behind port-multiplier eSATA ports, all of them driven by a SiI
  3124 controller (sata_sil24 kernel driver). Our machine sees all disks
  on all channels, however under 16.04 only one disk from each channel
  shows up in /dev/disk/by-path/ (all disks show up in /dev/disk/by-id
  and /dev/disk/by-uuid). For our usage this is a severe defect because
  we rotate disks in and out of the external enclosure and rely on
  mounting specific slots in the external enclosure through /dev/disk
  /by-path.

  This did not happen in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, the release that this machine
  was previously running.

  According to 'udevadm info --export-db' and 'udevadm test-builtin
  path_id' and so on, systemd's udev stuff is assigning all drives
  behind the same port the same disk/by-path data (ID_PATH et al). In
  'udevadm info /sys/block/sdX', the 'P:' and 'E: DEVPATH=' values show
  a difference in the target portion of PCI path, eg:

    P: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.0/0000:02:00.0/ata1/host0/target0:0:0/0:0:0:0/block/sda
    P: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.0/0000:02:00.0/ata1/host0/target0:1:0/0:1:0:0/block/sdb

  However the 'S: disk/by-path', 'E: DEVLINKS=', and 'E: ID_PATH'
  portions do not. For both devices above, we see:

    S: disk/by-path/pci-0000:02:00.0-ata-1
    E: ID_PATH=pci-0000:02:00.0-ata-1

  Naturally only one device can have a /dev/disk/by-
  path/pci-0000:02:00.0-ata-1 symlink, so instead of four disks per
  channel in /dev/disk/by-path we see one.

  Ubuntu release: 16.04

  Package versions from 'apt-cache policy udev systemd':
  udev:
    Installed: 229-4ubuntu7
  systemd:
    Installed: 229-4ubuntu7

  'journalctl -b' reports that during boot systemd does report some
  'appeared twice with different sysfs paths' notes, eg:

  Aug 10 13:34:21 verdandi systemd[1]: dev-disk-by\x2dpath-
  pci\x2d0000:02:00.0\x2data\x2d1\x2dpart1.device: Dev dev-disk-by
  \x2dpath-pci\x2d0000:02:00.0\x2data\x2d1\x2dpart1.device appeared
  twice with different sysfs paths
  /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.0/0000:02:00.0/ata1/host0/target0:3:0/0:3:0:0/block/sdd/sdd1
  and
  /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.0/0000:02:00.0/ata1/host0/target0:0:0/0:0:0:0/block/sda/sda1

  However it doesn't seem to be reporting this for all port-multiplier
  drives and their partitions.

  If it would be useful I can attach full 'udevadm info --export-db'
  output or the like.

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