Brocade Fabric OS FCIP Administrator's Guide v7.1.0 (53-1002748-01, March 2013)

48 Fabric OS FCIP Administrator’s Guide
53-1002748-01
Configuration steps
2
Keep-alive timeout option
Consider the following items when configuring the keep-alive timeout option:
• A FICON tunnel requires a keep-alive timeout of less than or equal to 1 second for each FCIP
circuit added to a tunnel.
• If the tunnel is created first with the FICON flag, then the keep-alive timeout for all added
circuits will be 1 second (recommended value for FICON configurations).
• If the tunnel is created with one or more circuits, and then the tunnel is modified to be a FICON
tunnel, then the circuits that were previously created must be modified to have the correct
keep-alive timeout value.
• Set the FCIP circuit keep-alive timeout to the same value on both ends of an FCIP tunnel. If
local and remote circuit configurations do not match, the tunnel will use the lower of the
configured values.
• For normal operations over FCIP tunnels, the keep-alive timeouts for all FCIP circuits in an FCIP
tunnel must be less than the overall I/O timeout for all FC exchanges. If the FC I/O timeout
value is less than the keep-alive timeout value, then I/Os will time out over all available FCIP
circuits without being retried.
The keep-alive value should be based on application requirements. Check with your FC initiator
providers to determine the appropriate keep-alive timeout value for your application. The sum of
keep-alive timeouts for all circuits in a tunnel should be close to the overall FC initiator I/O timeout
value. As an example, a mirroring application has a 6-second I/O timeout. There are three circuits
in the FCIP tunnel. Set the keep-alive timeout to 2 seconds on each FCIP circuit. This will allow for
maximum retries over all available FCIP circuits before an I/O is timed out by the initiator.
Refer to the portcfg fcipcircuit keep-alive timeout option in Table 8 on page 46 for information on
option format and value range.
Specify connection type Short option: -C
Long option:
--connection-type
Operands:
default|listener|initiator
Yes
Allows you to specify which side of the
circuit is the listener or initiator. If this is
not specified, the initiator or listener are
automatically selected based on the lower
and higher-order IP address. In NAT
environments, this can cause problems as
both sides of the circuit may have
lower-order addresses. When setting
initiator or listener options, a firmware
download to a previous version will not be
allowed until you set the default option.
Maximum retransmits Short option: -r
Long option:
--max-retransmits
Operands: rtx
No
Sets the maximum number of retransmits
for the FCIP circuit before the connection
will be brought down. If operating on a
lossy network, increasing this value may
allow the FCIP circuit to remain active
when it may otherwise fail. Specify a value
for rtx from 1 through 16 (default is 8).
Administrative status Short option: -a
Long option: --admin-status
Operands (modify and
create): 0|1
Yes
Disables or enables the FCIP circuit.
TABLE 8 Circuit options (Continued)
Option Argument Disruptive Description