Bug 924924

The configuration in the defaults section is only applied to devices if there if that parameter is not already configured in the devices or multipaths sections. The precedence order goes

multipaths > devices > defaults

If you run:

# multipathd show config

(you don't need to use -k"<command>" in RHEL6)

you will see the entire configuration, including the built-in defaults.

For your device, there is a built-in default

devices {
        ...
        device {
                vendor "(COMPAQ|HP)"
                product "HSV1[01]1|HSV2[01]0|HSV300|HSV4[05]0"
                path_grouping_policy group_by_prio
                getuid_callout "/lib/udev/scsi_id --whitelisted --device=/dev/%n"
                path_selector "round-robin 0"
                path_checker tur
                features "0"
                hardware_handler "0"
                prio alua
                failback immediate
                rr_weight uniform
                no_path_retry 12
                rr_min_io 100
                rr_min_io_rq 1
        }
        ...
}

To get this change to work, you want the following multipath.conf

####
defaults {
	user_friendly_names yes
	hwtable_regex_match yes
}

devices {
	device {
		vendor "HP"
		product "HSV300"
		getuid_callout "/lib/udev/scsi_id --whitelisted --replace-whitespace --device=/dev/%n"
	}
}
####

If you don't put "hwtable_regex_match" in the defaults section, you must match the vendor and product string exactly from built-in configuration to overwrite it, like so:

                vendor "(COMPAQ|HP)"
                product "HSV1[01]1|HSV2[01]0|HSV300|HSV4[05]0"

With "hwtable_regex_match", multipath will do the same regex matching that it does on your devices, to figure out which config you want to modify.  Either way works fine.

Then you can make multipathd reload the config with

# service multipathd reload

and check that it overwrote it correctly with

# multipathd show config

Does this fix it for you?

The goal is to overwrite the devices{} without having to enter a devices{} stanza.  

Here is my multipath.conf: 

defaults {
        getuid_callout "/lib/udev/scsi_id --whitelisted --replace-whitespace --device=/dev/%n"
        user_friendly_names yes
        hwtable_regex_match yes
}

blacklist {
        devnode "^(ram|raw|loop|fd|md|dm-|sr|scd|st)[0-9]*"
}

I am attempting to add the --replace-whitespace via defaults{} for *any* storage enclosure without having to add a separate devices{} stanza for each.  Since a devices{} does not exist in multipath.conf, the defaults{} should apply.   

With the above config, you can see the defaults{} is not being applied though a devices{} does not exist.  So it looks by default multipathd is performing a regex_match and only applying the hwtable entry even if a devices{} is not added to config file.  

Apr 11 09:00:36 | sdai: getuid = /lib/udev/scsi_id --whitelisted --device=/dev/%n (controller setting)

Apr 11 09:00:36 | sdv: getuid = /lib/udev/scsi_id --whitelisted --device=/dev/%n (controller setting)

Unfortunately, there is no way to do this for devices that have a built-in config.  Every built-in config explicitly sets the getuid_callout, so that setting it in
the defaults section will have no effect on those devices, since the devices section has priority over the defaults section.

While there is no way to change how the multipath precedence order works, for getuid_callout we can probably fix things, as described in Bug #961829.

I actually fixed this issue differently.  Instead of removing all of the default getuid settings in the devices section, which still had the possibility of causing problems for existing users on upgrade, I added a new multipath.conf keyword.

If you add

replace_wwid_whitespace yes

In the defaults section of multipath.conf, then the default getuid callout for all devices that use it will be changed to include --replace-whitespace.  This still means that users only need to change one line to get all the devices to replace whitespaces, but it can't effect any existing customers unless they add that line.

*** Bug 961829 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

I will need to add this new keyword to the Multipath document, so I'm cloning this as a documentation bug.

Set up a multipath device on top of an iscsi device served by tgtd. By default, these have uuids with spaces in them.
Reproduced like below mpathb shown.
[root@storageqe-17 ~]# multipath -ll
mpathb (1IET     00010001) dm-5 IET,VIRTUAL-DISK
size=500M features='0' hwhandler='0' wp=rw
`-+- policy='round-robin 0' prio=1 status=active
  `- 7:0:0:1 sde 8:64 active ready running
mpatha (360060160a32611005a800a3b568ce211) dm-0 DGC,RAID 10
size=50G features='1 queue_if_no_path' hwhandler='1 emc' wp=rw
|-+- policy='round-robin 0' prio=1 status=active
| |- 1:0:0:0 sda 8:0  active ready running
| `- 2:0:1:0 sdd 8:48 active ready running
`-+- policy='round-robin 0' prio=0 status=enabled
  |- 1:0:1:0 sdb 8:16 active ready running
  `- 2:0:0:0 sdc 8:32 active ready running

Verified on device-mapper-multipath-0.4.9-71.el6 with "replace_wwid_whitespace" set to "yes" in the defaults section of multipath.conf, the uuids that multipath gets will have their whitespace replaced by an "_". 
[root@storageqe-17 ~]# cat /etc/multipath.conf 
# multipath.conf written by anaconda

defaults {
	user_friendly_names yes
	replace_wwid_whitespace yes
}

[root@storageqe-17 ~]# multipath -l
mpathc (1IET_00010001) dm-11 IET,VIRTUAL-DISK
size=500M features='0' hwhandler='0' wp=rw
`-+- policy='round-robin 0' prio=0 status=active
  `- 8:0:0:1 sdd 8:48 active undef running
...

Since the problem described in this bug report should be
resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a
resolution of ERRATA.

For information on the advisory, and where to find the updated
files, follow the link below.

If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report.

http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2013-1574.html