How to Identify the LUN ID Associated with an Instance Volume
Problem
To identify the LUN ID on the backend storage that corresponds to a particular instance (VM) volume. This is useful for troubleshooting, storage mapping, and validating multipath connectivity.
Environment
- Private Cloud Director Virtualization - v2025.4 and Higher
- Private Cloud Director Kubernetes – v2025.4 and Higher
- Self-Hosted Private Cloud Director Virtualization - v2025.4 and Higher
- Component - Storage / Block Storage (Cinder, Multipath, LUN Mapping)
Procedure
- List the VM’s attached volumes
Run the following command on the compute node hosting the VM:
$ virsh domblklist <DOMAIN_ID>
Example output:
$ virsh domblklist vm-101
Target Source
------------------------------------------------
vda /var/lib/libvirt/images/vm1.qcow2
vdb /dev/disk/by-id/dm-name-mpathcq
The above command lists all block devices (disks) attached to the specified VM and shows their mapping to host devices.
In the above example output, we can see vdb is a block device mapped via multipath.
- Obtain the WWID of the multipath device
Identify the multipath name from Step 1 (mpathcq) and run:
$ multipath -ll | grep -A5 <DM-NAME>
Example output:
$ multipath -ll | grep -A5 mpathcq
mpathcq (123123123123123abc25abc) dm-9 3PARdata,VV
size=50G features='1 queue_if_no_path' hwhandler='1 alua' wp=rw
`-+- policy='round-robin 0' prio=50 status=active
|- 0:0:1:2 sdv 65:80 active ready running
|- 2:0:3:2 sdab 65:176 active ready running
|- 0:0:0:2 sdz 65:144 active ready running
- The WWID is
123123123123123abc25abc
(this uniquely identifies the volume). - The devices (sdv, sdab, sdz) show their
Host:Channel:Target:LUN (H:C:T:L)
tuples.
- Identifying the LUN ID from above output
- In the tuples 0:0:1:2 , 2:0:3:2 , 0:0:0:2 → the last number = LUN ID.
- So, this volume maps to LUN ID 2 on the storage backend.
- We can also cross check using by-path
$ ls -l /dev/disk/by-path/ | grep <DEVICE-NAME>
Example output:
$ ls -l /dev/disk/by-path/ | grep sdv
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Aug 20 10:15 pci-0000:3b:00.0-fc-0x1235000abc-lun-2 -> ../../sdv
Output will show a symlink including lun-2, confirming the backend LUN mapping.
Additional Information
- In the SCSI address format
Host:Channel:Target:LUN (H:C:T:L)
, the last digit (L) represents the LUN ID. virsh domblklist
helps you trace which device (e.g., /dev/dm-*) is attached to a VM.multipath -ll
maps that device to its WWID and shows the backend paths, where you can identify the LUN ID./dev/disk/by-path/
provides human-readable symlinks, including names like lun-<N>, making it easier to confirm the LUN number.