During/after a planned maintenance outage, ESXi cannot mount datastores on our Dell EqualLogic Array and I have no idea why.
We're running ESXi 5.0. We shutdown everything over the weekend, replaced some network cables and when we came back up our ESXi hosts could not see the iSCSI EqualLogic array, however it could see several other iSCSI arrays on the same storage network. In digging into log files, I see the ESXi host doing CHAP authentication to the EqualLogic array, and the array says it logs in successfully, then loses connection about 10 seconds later. 10 more seconds ESXi attempts reconnection to the EqualLogic and the same thing happens over again.
I see several logs in ESXi hostd.log that indicate this array going ONLINE, then OFFLINE, and another line stating 'Possible sense data' leading me to http://kb.vmware.com/kb/289902. I feel really handicapped at the moment as this is the storage array hosting our vCenter Server, which puts us in a mess right now.
Also, If I try to 'Add Storage', ESXi sees the EqualLogic stores exist (shows proper volume size etc.). However as I'm trying to add them (through vSphere Client), step 1 takes a long time to complete, step 2 indicates the 'disks are empty' (which I don't believe) and then after another long timeout presents a popup error.
Are there any commands or utilities that are good for diagnosing iSCSI specifically?
I can post more specific log details if that's helpful.
P.S. - The new network cables are communicating ok with the other storage targets, and we did not replace the EqualLogic cables.