Port, VSAN and Zone mapping

[igor_bakman]

Hi all,

I'm new with san switching, and I have several questions:

1. What are the commands (show commands) that will show me what ports belongs to which VSAN and ZONE?
2. How is it best to configure zones? port based or otherwise?
3. What is the difference between "device alias" and "FC alias"
4. Are interface (fc1/1) and ports are the same, i.e. synonyms?

Kind Regards,

Igor.

[Vu Phan]

Hello Igor,

May be you can try this Fiber Channel 101 document here. It will help answer the question above

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/datacenter/mds9000/sw/4_1/configuration/guides/cli_4_1/gen2.html

[jihicks · Accepted solution]

Hi Igor,

1. What are the commands (show commands) that will show me what ports belongs to which VSAN and ZONE?

The comamnds to show this are:

show interface brief ( shows status of the interfaces and what vsan they are in )

show vsan membership

show zone member ?

  device-alias  Device-Alias

  fcalias         Alias Name

  fcid             FCID

  pwwn          WWN

example showing all zone membership of a single pwwn in the active zoneset:

swittch# show zone member pwwn 21:00:00:c0:dd:10:ff:0d active

pwwn 21:00:00:c0:dd:10:ff:0d vsan 100

  zone Zone1

  zone Zone2

Another useful command is:

show fcns database

The DCNM GUI shows this much better in "Edit Local Full Zone Database":

You may have to right click and select "Show Details > All Rows".

2. How is it best to configure zones? port based or otherwise?

Here is a link to the "Cisco MDS SAN Zoning Best Practices":

https://supportforums.cisco.com/docs/DOC-24281

3, What is the difference between "device alias" and "FC alias"?

Here is a good link that shows the comparison between zone-based aliases, also known as fcalias and device aliases:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/datacenter/mds9000/sw/5_2/configuration/guides/fabric/nx-os/ddas_ps5989_TSD_Products_Configuration_Guide_Chapter.html#wp1139940

Device-alias vs fcalias

FCalias is used for zoning only.

FCalias can contain multiple PWWNs.

FCalias is configured per VSAN.

FCalias is propagated via distributing the full zoneset.

FCalias is interoperable with OEM switches, Brocade,McData

Device alias is 1 PWWN.

Device alias can be use for multiple functions like port security, IVR, and zoning.

Device alias is not VSAN specific.

Device alias is distributed via CFS (Cisco Fabric Service).

Device alias can not be distributed to OEM switches.

Before the device-alias option appears in FM or DCNM when zoning you have to enable enhanced device-alias.

If you decide to use device-aliase for zoning, I suggest you go to NX-OS 5.2(8) to avoid some recent bugs with this.

4. Are interface (fc1/1) and ports are the same, i.e. synonyms?

Yes, they are.

[igor_bakman]

Thank you, you have helped me a lot.

I have another question, i want to see what wwn is attached to each port.

The actual mapping i;m looking for is: Vsan -> Zone -> Port(interface) -> Attached wwn.

If you can guide me to the set of CLI commands i would very much appreciate it.

Kind regards,

Igor.

[dynamoxxx]

you can try:

sh flogi database

[igor_bakman]

Thanks for the reply, the "NODE NAME" column represents the connected wwn to the port?

[dynamoxxx]

each HBA has port WWN and node WWN. For example a dual port HBA would have one node name but two port names. Port name is what you use to do your zoning.

[igor_bakman]

Thanks again, you have been a great help.

Sorry for bothering, i just want to organize it all:

with "sh vsan membership" i will see which interfaces are under which VSANs

with "sh zoneset" i will see what pwwn is under which zone and zoneset

with "sh interface" i will see the interface wwn under "Port WWN"

with "sh flogi database" i will see the attached HBA (port & node) to each interface

Am i correct? if not, please correct me.

BTY, i saw examples for "sh flogi database", and there were several HBAs attached, how can it be? could you explain it to me?

Kind regards,

Igor.

[jihicks]

Hi Igor,

You should use the "show flogi database"  to see who is logged into the fabric on this switch.

If you have more than one switch in your fabric, then you will need to use "show fcns database" to see them

from the other switches.

switch# show fcns database vsan 10

VSAN 10:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FCID        TYPE  PWWN                    (VENDOR)        FC4-TYPE:FEATURE

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

0xe80000    N     21:01:00:e0:8b:39:a9:07 (Qlogic)        scsi-fcp:init

In the example above, this HBA is on a swtich with fcdomain "0xe8"

If you want to find out what switch this is, use "show fcdomain domain-list vsan 10" and show "fcs ie vsan 10" or

you can use "show topology vsan 10"

Switch1# show topo vsan 10

FC Topology for VSAN 10 :

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

       Interface         Peer Domain      Peer Interface        Peer IP Address

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

            fc4/1         0xea(234)           fc1/5                   172.18.121.75

port-channel 128   0xe8(232)           port-channel 128  172.18.121.44

I can see that this HBA is on a switch with IP address 172.18.121.44 because the FCDOMAIN of that

switch is 0xe8 and that is also the first byte of the FCID assigned to the HBA.

Now if I go to that switch:

Switch4# show flogi data

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

INTERFACE        VSAN    FCID           PORT NAME                      NODE NAME

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

fc1/29                 10        0xe80000      21:01:00:e0:8b:39:a9:07     20:01:00:e0:8b:39:a9:07

The reason you might see more than one PWWN on a particular switch port is a feature called N-Port Virtualization.

This allows for more than one device to log into the same port.  This is usually used in conjuction with a device like a blade center or UCS that has multiple HBAs in it. 

Here is a white paper on N-Port virtualization:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/ps4159/ps6409/ps5989/ps9898/white_paper_c11-459263.html

Best regards,

Jim