PowerFlex: Unable to add DAX device which was created before installing libpmem Pkg

Summary: This article is about an error that a user may see when adding a "DAX" device into the acceleration Pool.

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Symptoms

The below message is seen when trying to add a device to the acceleration pool.

 # scli --add_sds_device --sds_name xxxxxx --acceleration_pool_name test --device_path /dev/dax0.0 --device_name daxtest

Error: MDM failed command. The PMEM API is not available.

Events log:
609   2019-07-19 13:40:44.211 OPEN_SDS_DEVICE_FAILED    ERROR         Could not open a device on SDS: (Path: /dev/dax0.0). Error message: The PMEM API is not available. 
610   2019-07-19 13:40:44.215 CLI_COMMAND_FAILED        WARNING       Command add_sds_device was not successful. Error code: The PMEM API is not available. [605250] ID: 0000000000000000

The device is visible on the host:

[NVDIMM DEVICE NAME: dax0.0]
is_interleaved:false
worst_dimm_name:nmem0
health_state:ok
life_used_percentage:8
temperature_celsius:255.000000

The required packages are installed.

 # rpm -qa 
daxctl-libs-62-1.el7.x86_64 libpmem-1.4-3.el7.x86_64 ndctl-libs-62-1.el7.x86_64 ndctl-62-1.el7.x86_64

The message log shows when each package was installed.  We can see that the PMEM API was installed on the 16th July.

 

Jul 15 15:27:56 yum[354028]: Installed: daxctl-libs-62-1.el7.x86_64
Jul 15 15:27:56 yum[354028]: Installed: ndctl-libs-62-1.el7.x86_64
Jul 15 15:27:56 yum[354028]: Installed: oniguruma-5.9.5-3.el7.x86_64
Jul 15 15:27:56 yum[354028]: Installed: jq-1.5-1.el7.x86_64
Jul 15 15:27:56 yum[354028]: Installed: ndctl-62-1.el7.x86_64
Jul 16 15:04:54 yum[33410]: Installed: 1:bash-completion-2.1-6.el7.noarch
Jul 16 15:30:28 yum[34032]: Installed:-1.4-3.el7.x86_64

The DAX device was created on the 14th July, before the libpmem package was installed.

 ./dev  crw-------. 1 root root 253, 14 Jul 19 14:12 dax0.0

Cause

SDS had not been restarted since installing the lipmem package.

Resolution

Fix:
When PMEM API is available after "SDS" is up, and running it might not recognize it correctly.
In order to resolve the issue, one of the below steps must be applied.

1) Run pkill SDS (to restart the SDS service) and then retry to add the dax device.

Or

2) Reboot the SDS and then retry to add the dax device.

 

Additional Information

Note:  
Error message: The PMEM API is not available - user may see this error if "libpmem" package has not been installed (yum install "libpmem")

Products

PowerFlex appliance R650, PowerFlex appliance R6525, PowerFlex appliance R660, PowerFlex appliance R6625, Powerflex appliance R750, PowerFlex appliance R760, PowerFlex appliance R7625, PowerFlex custom node, PowerFlex custom node R650 , PowerFlex custom node R6525, PowerFlex custom node R660, PowerFlex custom node R6625, PowerFlex custom node R750, PowerFlex custom node R760, PowerFlex custom node R7625, VxFlex Ready Node, VxFlex Ready Node R640, VxFlex Ready Node R740xd, PowerFlex appliance R640, PowerFlex appliance R740XD, PowerFlex appliance R7525, PowerFlex appliance R840, VxFlex Ready Node R840 ...
Article Properties
Article Number: 000168245
Article Type: Solution
Last Modified: 24 Nov 2025
Version:  4
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