What is Multipathd?
In Ubuntu, multipathd is a specialized background daemon designed for enterprise data centers. Its purpose is to manage “multipath” routing to massive Storage Area Network (SAN) arrays. If an enterprise server has two separate fiber-optic cables connecting it to a massive hard drive array, and one cable gets severed, multipathd instantly reroutes the data traffic through the second cable without the operating system ever noticing the failure.
This is critical for high-availability enterprise servers. However, if you are running Ubuntu on a standard desktop PC or a laptop with a single, internal NVMe SSD or SATA hard drive, this service is entirely useless. Despite this, it often runs by default in the background, consuming a tiny amount of memory and generating unnecessary log entries as it continually probes your single hard drive for non-existent secondary data paths. You can safely disable it.
How to Disable Multipathd in Ubuntu
To stop this enterprise routing service from running, you must disable it via systemctl.
- Open your Ubuntu Terminal (shortcut:
Ctrl + Alt + T). - First, stop the daemon from running in your current session:
sudo systemctl stop multipathd.service- Next, disable the service so it does not launch on the next system boot:
sudo systemctl disable multipathd.service- If you want to ensure the socket is also disabled:
sudo systemctl disable multipathd.socket- (Optional but Recommended for Desktops): Since a standard PC will never connect to an enterprise SAN, you can completely uninstall the package to save disk space and prevent it from being re-enabled during a dist-upgrade:
sudo apt-get purge multipath-toolsYour single-drive system will continue to boot and operate perfectly normally, as standard internal drives do not require multipath routing software.