FC knowledge

FC Layers

Fibre Channel consists of the following layers:

FC-0 — The interface to the physical media
FC-1 — The encoding and decoding of data and out-of-band physical link control information for transmission over the physical media
FC-2 — The transfer of frames, sequences and exchanges comprising protocol information units.
FC-3 — Common services required for advanced features such as striping, hunt group and multicast.
FC-4 — Application interfaces that can execute over Fibre Channel such as the Fibre Channel Protocol for SCSI (FCS).

FC Ports

N_Port (Node port) An N_Port is typically an HBA port that connects to a switch’s F_Port or another N_Port. Nx_Port communicating through a PN_Port that is not operating a Loop Port State Machine.
F_Port (Fabric port) An F_Port is a switch port that is connected to an N_Port.
E_Port (Expansion port) Switch port that attaches to another E_Port to create an Inter-Switch Link.

Brocade SAN Switch commands

Brocade commands are usually very easy to find out. Simply type “help”, but what exactly does each command do? Here’s a list:

Info

uptime                        – Same as unix uptime
date                             – Same as unix date
version                        – Gives versions of firmwares & OS

Hardware State

faultshow                    – Show switch faults
fanshow                       – Show switch FAN faults
psshow                         – Show switch POWER SUPPLY faults
tempshow                    – Show switch TEMPERATURE values
switchstatusshow       – Overall status of switch

Config

agtcfgshow                – Show SNMP config
configshow                 – Show switch config
gbicshow                     – Show GBIC slots and serial numbers
licenseshow                – Show license data
supportshow                – Like Sun’s explorer – gets many configs at once
switchshow                – Show switch ports and connections
zoneshow                    – Show zone and switch aliases

IP

bcastshow                   – Show broadcast routing
ifmodeshow                 – show interface mode (duplex)
ifshow                         – Like unix netstat -s
ipaddrshow                – Like unix netstat -i
interfaceshow               – Like unix ndd

Performance

ifshow                        – Like unix netstat -s
portperfshow                – Show interface mode (duplex)
portshow #                – Show stats on a port
portrouteshow #           – Show routes on a port
portstatsshow #        – Show stats (netstat -s) on a port

Misc Show

diagshow                     – Show diagnostics – paged output
errdump                    – Show diagnostics – no paged output
fabricshow                   – Show fabric
fspfshow                    – Show FSPF protocol info
mqshow                       – Show queues
nbrstateshow                – Show FSPF neighbor states
nsshow                        – Show name servers
nsallshow                    – Show all name servers
porterrshow                – Like mpstat – shows port info
switchstatuspolicyshow – Show config at when errors are flagged

Cisco MDS 9000 Series

Intro

Multilayer Fiber Switches for SAN environment.

Useful links:

Landing Page https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/storage-networking/mds-9000-series-multilayer-switches/index.html

Troubleshooting http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/storage/san_switches/mds9000/sw/rel_3_x/troubleshooting/guide/trblgd.html

Notes:

Cisco MDS 9000 SAN-OS Softwre Release 2.x is retired End-Of-Support Date 15 June 2013
Cisco MDS 9000 SAN-OS Softwre Release 3.x is retired End-Of-Support Date 4 july 2015
Cisco MDS 9000 SAN-OS Softwre Release 4.x is retired End-Of-Support Date 31 July 2017