Fibre Switch ISL's

[CA1091841]

I'm having an issue with inconnecting my Fibre Channel switches. I have 2 Fabrics with 2 switches in each. One pair of switches are working fine they set themselves up as a principle and subordinate over 2 ISL E-Ports. The other 2 are the problem they both think the are the principle and will not connect up ports are labeled incompatible Is there a way to make on of the be a subordinate? Or any other suggestions or thoughts would be great.

Thanks Tom

[CA1074530]

Hi Tom,
You did not mention what type of switches you are using, however I will assume they are something like the 16EL or 2/16EL's that I have.
Have you checked or configured the domain ID for both switches. They are supposed to be unique in a fabric, and if the switches are out-of-the-box, they may auto-configure. It is possible that they may not, and you have two switches that have the same domain ID and are not changing. You set these via the configure command. Manual states that the lowest ID is the master, however I do not see that in my environment, although I have mixed switch types so there may be another precedent taking place.
Also ensure that the general switch parameters are the same. If you are able to, you could clear the config's on both switches and reconnect the ISL. This may then auto-detect better.
Hopefully this helps.
Dean.

[Uwe Zessin]

Dean,
the switch with the lowest WWN becomes the principal. I have read somewhere (sorry, don't recall) that switches should not be set to 'factory defaults' because they will loose the HP-specific parameters. Unfortunately they didn't say what those parameters were and I have not yet tried to obtain that information.

As you say correctly there might be a problem with incompatible switch parameters. Recent 2 GBit switches have the 'core PID format' enabled. HP recommends to migrate to this setting.

I will attach a short .TXT file that shows how to turn it on. It is my experience that after the bit is turned on a mix of WWN and port-based zonig stops working, so check this in advance.

[BR796984]

Hey

You are trying to make a circle from all the switches?
If you have EL switches there is a possibility that there is licensed only 1 E-port per switch...
So can you send me the information what switch types are you using and how you tried to interconnect them together?

BR
Tarmo Linnamägi

[CA1091841]

I'm using SANSwitch 2/16 1G and SANswitch 2/16 2GB switches. They are configured in pairs for redundant switch fabrics. In compairing the set that is working and the set that is not the only parameter that is not the same is fibre.ops.mode.pidFormat it is set to 1 on the functioning pair and 0 on the non-functioning pair. Problem is in configure mode there is no option to change the parameter It is shown in configshow output. How do I change it???
BTW I have tried the ports in auto and 1G modes to see if they connect.

Tom

[CA1091841]

Uwe,

I was unable to see the txt file can you point to a manual with the procedure?

Tom

[Uwe Zessin]

Tom, I'm sorry you can't get that file. I don't know what the cause is, but I can't access it either.

OK, I will include it into this text. You will see that all space characters will get compressed, but it should still be helpful. I don't recall in which of the many manuals this is written, I am just glad I have documented it on my own!

-----
s2:admin> switchdisable
s2:admin> 0x10249c60 (tThad): Jan 18 10:45:21
WARNING FW-STATUS_SWITCH, 3, Switch status changed from HEALTHY/OK to
Marginal/Warning

s2:admin> configure

Configure...

Fabric parameters (yes, y, no, n): y

Domain: (1..239) <== change domain here
BB credit: (1..27)
R_A_TOV: (4000..120000)
E_D_TOV: (1000..5000)
Data field size: (256..2112)
Sequence Level Switching: (0..1)
Disable Device Probing: (0..1)
Suppress Class F Traffic: (0..1)
SYNC IO mode: (0..1)
VC Encoded Address Mode: (0..1)
Core Switch PID Format: (0..1) 1 <== 1 enables core PID format
Per-frame Route Priority: (0..1)
Long Distance Fabric: (0..1)

Virtual Channel parameters (yes, y, no, n):
Switch Operating Mode (yes, y, no, n):
Zoning Operation parameters (yes, y, no, n):
RSCN Transmission Mode (yes, y, no, n):
NS Operation Parameters (yes, y, no, n):
Arbitrated Loop parameters (yes, y, no, n):
System services (yes, y, no, n):
Portlog events enable (yes, y, no, n):
Committing configuration...done.
s2:admin>
s2:admin> switchenable
Command in progress . . . . . . . . done
s2:admin>
-----

If the 'core PID fomat' dialog does not come up I am afraid a firmware update is necessary, but:
do I understand you correctly what you try to link two 1 GBit switches where _both_ have the format set to 0?

Do you, by chance, have an incompatible zoning setup defined on both switches? Does a 'switchShow' tell the reason for the segmentation? What happens when you pull all ISLs between the non-working pair and reconnect just one cable. Do any helpful messages come up?

I hope this helps you any further.

[CA1091841]

Thanks to all for there suggestions I tried them all. There was still one parameter that was different between the switches "fabric.ops.vc.config: 0xc8" all the otherswitches were set to 0xc0 and there was not way to change it. What finally fixed the issue was to do a configDefault, that cleared up the fabric.ops.vc.config: 0xc0 I set the fabric.ops.mode.pidformat to 1 and set fabric.ops.mode.vcEncode to 1 and all is well and one switch became a subordinate to the other.

Thanks Again everyone
Tom

[Uwe Zessin]

Tom,

I cannot really check this, but it sounds to me like one of the 1 GBit switches was configured to be compatible with the first generation of fibre channel switches (those had a green display).

I have read somewhere that one should not do a 'configDefault' has this would invalidate some settings for Compaq/HP fabrics. I am not sure if that warning applies to the family of 2 GBit switches only and not the 1 GBit family - I haven't found time to investigate myself, sorry.

BTW, I have tried to download my attachment again and it worked this time.
Strange...

[CA1091841]

Uwe,

What I was able to understand for other sources that the configDefault does not change the HP fabric specific settings there is another command (maybe undocumented?) The configDeafult retains a lot of the pertinate info WWN, MAC's, IP's, License Keys, system Name etc.... So so far all has been good. Also just for info the switch with the bad parameter was a new 2GB switch.

Thanks for your help,
Tom