Users Guide

Fabric OS Troubleshooting and Diagnostics Guide 65
53-1002930-01
Chapter
7
Virtual Fabrics
In this chapter
•General Virtual Fabrics troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
•Fabric identification issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
•Logical Fabric issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
•Base switch issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
•Logical switch issues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
•Switch configuration blade compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
•Gathering additional information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
General Virtual Fabrics troubleshooting
All of the following constraints apply when the Virtual Fabrics feature is enabled:
• The base fabric works only in Brocade native mode, not in an interoperable mode.
• The base switch does not have any devices. The base fabric can have devices in remote Layer
2 switches; traffic between those devices is supported.
• A non-base switch in a Virtual Fabrics-capable chassis must not be part of a fabric that serves
as a base fabric for some other logical fabric traffic. Although software does not detect or
prevent users from deploying such a configuration, such a configuration is not supported.
• ICL ports can only be in the base or default switch. If the XISL is turned off, you can connect
ICLs to other logical switches.
• A default switch can be configured as a base switch in the fixed-port switches, but not in a
Brocade Backbone. Fabric IDs of default switches cannot be manually changed.
• The default switch is able to participate in a logical fabric using extended ISLs (XISLs). In the
Brocade Backbones, the default switch does not participate in a logical fabric and is a purely
Layer 2 logical switch.
• EX_Ports and VEX_Ports are supported in the base switch. EX_Ports cannot be part of any
other switch other than the base switch.
• EX_Ports and VEX_Ports cannot connect to a fabric that has a logical switch with the Allow XISL
use mode on. The port is disabled with the reason “Conflict: XISL capability domain”.
• External device sharing is supported through EX_Ports. Internal device sharing (sharing a
device in a logical fabric with other fabrics, without having an EX_Port) is not supported.
• A logical fabric cannot have EX_Ports using XISLs and cannot serve as a backbone to any
EX_Port traffic. Similarly, the default switch cannot be part of a fabric that serves as a
backbone to any EX_Port traffic.