You can temporarily disable a path with ESXCLI for maintenance or other reasons, and enable the path when you need it again.

If you are changing a path's state, the change operation fails if I/O is active when the path setting is changed. Reissue the command. You must issue at least one I/O operation before the change takes effect.

Specify one of the options listed in Connection Options for ESXCLI Host Management Commands in place of <conn_options>.

Procedure

  1. (Optional) List all devices and corresponding paths. 
    esxcli <conn_options> storage core path list
    The display includes information about each path's state.
  2. Set the state of a LUN path to off. 
    esxcli <conn_options> storage core path set --state off --path vmhba32:C0:T1:L0

What to do next

When you are ready, set the path state to active again. 

esxcli <conn_options> storage core path set --state active --path vmhba32:C0:T1:L0