Chapter 7 Configuring FCoE Ports

This chapter provides the steps used to configure FCoE ports hosted on normal Ethernet interfaces. This chapter does not apply to hardware FCoE ports on Converged Network Adapters (CNA).

The following topics are discussed:

• What is FCoE?

• Limitations of FCoE

• Configuring FCoE Ports

What is FCoE?

FCoE is a new T11 standard that transports encapsulated Fibre Channel frames over Enhanced Ethernet. FCoE is designed to enable network convergence and cost-effective SAN expansion in data centers.

Limitations of FCoE

The Solaris FCoE initiator is a pure software implementation that is designed to work with normal Ethernet controllers. However, you must comply with the following limitations of Solaris FCoE implementations:

• FCoE ports cannot be used for booting.

• FCoE ports cannot be configured in xVM or LDom guest operating systems.

• FCoE is supported in fabric and point-to-point topologies.

FCoE is not supported on all hardware. FCoE works with Ethernet controllers that support 802.3x PAUSE and jumbo frames, and have a GLDv3 driver.

Configuring FCoE Ports

The fcadm(1M) command is available to configure FCoE ports. The fcinfo(1M) and fcadm(1M) status commands are available to determine the status of FCoE ports. The commands also report the relationship between the Ethernet interface and the FCoE port hosted on that interface.

Other Fibre Channel commands, such as luxadm(1M) and cfgadm(1M), report FCoE information, although there is no distinction made between FCoE and native FC ports.

To Create an FCoE Port

Before You Begin

Before you begin this procedure, you must perform the following tasks:

• Enable the 802.3x (also called PAUSE) setting on the Ethernet interface. This setting ensures a lossless Ethernet transport.

• Enable jumbo frames (greater than 2.5 Kbytes) on the Ethernet interface. A Fibre Channel data frame can be as large as 2136 bytes.

These settings can vary for different Ethernet hardware and drivers. In most cases, you must modify the driver.conf file of the Ethernet interface and then reboot. See the driver.conf file for your Ethernet interface for details on how to enable these features.

Each virtual port must have a port and node name. The port name must be unique on the SAN. You can assign names manually or use the built-in WWN generator. If you attempt to register duplicate names, the switch will report an error status on the newly registered WWN, and the switch will not register the new WWN. For more information on acceptable name formats, refer to the T11 standard: Fibre Channel Framing and Signaling (FC-FS 2).

If you try to create an FCoE port on a network interface that does not support FCoE (for example, xnf in xVM or VNET in LDom), an error occurs and the FCoE port is not created.

1. Become superuser.

2. Create an FCoE port.

   # fcadm create-fcoe-port -p Port_WWN -n Node_WWN Ethernet_Interface

   If the selected Ethernet interface does not support Multiple Unicast Address, you are prompted to explicitly enable promiscuous mode on that interface.

   # fcadm create-fcoe-port -f Ethernet_Interface

Example 7–1 Creating an FCoE Port

The following example creates an FCoE port on Ethernet interface nxge0 with port WWN and node WWN generated automatically.

# fcadm create-fcoe-port nxge0

To Delete an FCoE Port

Before You Begin

You can use the fcadm list-fcoe-ports command to display the Ethernet interfaces hosting the FCoE ports.

1. Become superuser.

2. Delete an FCoE port.

   # fcadm delete-fcoe-port network_interface

Example 7–2 Deleting an FCoE Port

The following example deletes an FCoE port on Ethernet interface nxge0.

# fcadm delete-fcoe-port nxge0

To Report Status on FCoE Ports

1. Become superuser.

2. Report the status on the currently configured FCoE ports.

   # fcinfo hba-port -e

   This command retrieves a list of FC specific information for all FCoE ports in the system.

   # fcadm list-fcoe-ports

   This command retrieves a list of FCoE specific information for all FCoE ports in the system.

Example 7–3 Reporting Status on FCoE Ports

The following example reports FC and FCoE specific information for all FCoE ports.

# fcinfo hba-port -e
HBA Port WWN: 200000144fc1f5c8
			Port Mode: Initiator
			Port ID: 9a0042
			OS Device Name: /dev/cfg/c6
			Manufacturer: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
			Model: FCoE Virtual FC HBA
			Firmware Version: N/A
			FCode/BIOS Version: N/A
			Serial Number: N/A
			Driver Name: SunFC FCoEI v20090422-1.00
			Driver Version: v20090422-1.00
			Type: N-port
			State: online
			Supported Speeds: 1Gb 10Gb
			Current Speed: 10 Gb
			Node WWN: 100000144fc1f5c8

# fcadm list-fcoe-ports
HBA Port WWN: 200000144fc1f5c8
			Port Type: Initiator
			MAC Name: nxge0
			MTU Size: 9194
			Primary MAC Address: 00144fc1f5c8
			Current MAC Address: 0efc009a0042
			Promiscuous Mode: Off