Deployment Guide

Zone configurations
You can store a number of zones in a zone configuration database. The maximum number of items that
can be stored in the zone configuration database depends on the following criteria:
• Number of switches in the fabric.
• Number of bytes for each item name. The number of bytes required for an item name depends on
the specifics of the fabric, but cannot exceed 64 bytes for each item.
When enabling a new zone configuration, ensure that the size of the defined configuration does not
exceed the maximum configuration size supported by all switches in the fabric. This is particularly
important if you downgrade to a Fabric OS version that supports a smaller zone database than the
current Fabric OS. In this scenario, the zone database in the current Fabric OS would have to be
changed to the smaller zone database before the downgrade.
You can use the cfgSize command to check both the maximum available size and the currently saved
size on all switches. If you think you are approaching the maximum, you can save a partially completed
zone configuration and use the cfgSize command to determine the remaining space. The cfgSize
command reports the maximum available size on the current switch only. It cannot determine the
maximum available size on other switches in the fabric.
NOTE
The minimum zone database size is 4 bytes, even if the zone database is empty.
For important considerations for managing zoning in a fabric, and more details about the maximum
zone database size for each version of the Fabric OS, refer to Zone database size on page 320.
If you create or make changes to a zone configuration, you must enable the configuration for the
changes to take effect.
Creating a zone configuration
Use the following procedure to create a zone configuration.
1. Connect to the switch and log in using an account with admin permissions.
2. Enter the cfgCreate command, using the following syntax:
cfgcreate "cfgname ", "member [; member ...]"
3. Enter the cfgSave command to save the change to the defined configuration.
The cfgSave command ends and commits the current zoning transaction buffer to nonvolatile
memory. If a transaction is open on a different switch in the fabric when this command is run, the
transaction on the other switch is automatically aborted. A message displays on the other switches to
indicate that the transaction was aborted.
switch:admin> cfgcreate "NEW_cfg", "purplezone; bluezone; greenzone"
switch:admin> cfgsave
WARNING!!!
The changes you are attempting to save will render the Effective configuration and
the Defined configuration inconsistent. The inconsistency will result in different
Effective Zoning configurations for switches in the fabric if a zone merge or HA
failover happens. To avoid inconsistency it is recommended to commit the
configurations using the 'cfgenable' command.
Do you still want to proceed with saving the Defined zoning configuration only?
(yes, y, no, n): [no] y
Zone configurations
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