Converting from Fabric back to Direct (Point-To-Point) Connect

[Jerry Sanders]

We recently had an RP8400 using Dual Port HP dual port fibre channel cards with one port attached to a Brocade switch and configured in a fabric environment. We attempted to revert back to a non-fabric environment but it seems the HBA port can't see the direct connected RAID unit. When you run an fcmsutil on the device file it shows a Driver status = AWAITING_LINK_UP and the Switch Port/Node World Wide Name(s) = 0x0000000000000000 rather than N/A as they originally did in a direct connect setup. How do we clear the port so it will no longer be looking for the switch? BTW, if we re-connect the switch the Driver status = ONLINE and the Switch Port/Node WWN = the wwn of the switch.

[Steven E. Protter · Accepted solution]

Shalom Jerry,

This may be a problem with what is configured on the fabric network having the wrong World Wide Name.

Some of the HBA's can't handle direct connect to the RAID device, or the port may not be configured on the RAID device.

I suspect the problem does not lie on the rp8400 server, but on the RAID device.

SEP

[Jerry Sanders]

The same equipment was originally connected in direct connect then converted to direct fabric attached. We are now attempting to convert back from fabric to direct connect and for some reason the HBA port continues to expect a switch. I need to reset the port so that it doesn't expect a switch between the HP and the disk device. I even tried removing the /stand/ioconfig and /etc/ioconfig files and recreating during a reboot with the ioinit -c. This only removed the previous disk devices and fcp from the the ioscan. It did nothing for resetting the port on the card.

[Jerry Sanders]

Thank you Steven. You were absolutely correct. I went back to the RAID unit and found the communication protocol was configured incorrectly. The firmware has a bug in it and the GUI parameter changes weren't taking affect. I had to us a null modem serial cable to connect and use the menu options to update the configuration successfully.

Thanks again.