Diagnostic Questions

Before revealing the investigation path:

1. The backup fails because /mnt/backup is not mounted. The iSCSI initiator is running but discovery fails with "connection timed out." Ping to the storage array works. What does this tell you about the nature of the connectivity issue?

2. ICMP works but TCP to port 3260 is blocked. What network device or configuration could allow ICMP while blocking specific TCP ports between two subnets?

3. The inter-VLAN ACL was updated 3 days ago as part of a datacenter hardening project. The allowlist includes SSH and HTTPS but not iSCSI. How would you audit which services need to be in the allowlist before making such a change?

4. The root cause is a datacenter infrastructure change (ACL update) but the fix is a networking configuration change (add port to ACL). Why is this categorized as a networking fix rather than a datacenter ops fix?

5. What architectural change would eliminate this category of failure entirely? How would you isolate storage traffic from general network hardening changes?