Reference Guide

352 Brocade Fabric OS Command Reference
53-1004112-02
flow
Notes
This command requires a Fabric Vision license.
The execution of this command is subject to Virtual Fabric restrictions that may be in place. Refer to "Using Fabric
OS Commands" and "Command Availability" for details.
Function Creating a flow
Synopsis flow --create flow_name -feature feature_list
port_options frame_options [config_options]
Description Use this command to create a flow and by default activate the flow for the specified features. This command
validates the flow definition before creating a flow. If the flow definition is not supported by any specified feature or
if the flow definition is a duplicate of an existing active flow, the operation will terminate with an appropriate error
message. For more information on duplicate flows, refer to the Fabric OS Administrator's Guide.
The following rules apply for creating a flow:
• You must specify at least one port option (-ingrport or -egrport) but not both.
• You must specify the source device (-srcdev), the destination device (-dstdev), or both. The source device and
the destination device can be learned using a wildcard ("*").
• The ingress port and egress port must reside in the local switch.
• The source device and destination device can reside in either the local or remote switch.
• You can create 512 flows on a Brocade director and 128 flows on a switch-based system. Note that each flow
discovered when using "*" as a source device or destination device will count as one of these flows. These
system-discovered flows will impact the number of user-defined flows allowed to be active.
• The configuration options -noactivate, -noconfig, and -bidir are optional.
• You can create up to 64 monitor flows and four generator flows per port.
• You can activate one mirror flow per chassis or switch-based system.
Operands The --create command has the following operands:
flow_name
Specifies the name of the flow. Each flow name must be a unique string composed of a
maximum of 20 alphanumeric or underscore characters. The flow name is case-insensitive
and is always stored as lowercase.
-feature feature_list
Specifies a comma-separated list of features to activate for the flow. Specify "all" to activate
all features for a flow. Valid values for feature_list include the following:
monitor
Activates the Flow Monitor feature for a flow. The Flow Monitor feature monitors and
provides statistics for the specified flow.