Virtual fabrics, In this chapter, General virtual fabric troubleshooting – Dell POWEREDGE M1000E User Manual
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Fabric OS Troubleshooting and Diagnostics Guide
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Chapter
7
Virtual Fabrics
In this chapter
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General Virtual Fabric troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
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Switch configuration blade compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
General Virtual Fabric troubleshooting
All of the following constraints apply when the Virtual Fabric feature is enabled:
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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
two switches; traffic between those devices is supported.
•
A non-base switch in a Virtual Fabric-capable chassis must not be part of a fabric that serves
as a base fabric for some other logical fabric traffic. Although software will not detect or
prevent users from deploying such a configuration, such a configuration is not supported.
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ICL ports can only be in the base or default switch. If XISL is turned off, you can connect ICLs to
other logical switches.
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A default switch can be configured as a base switch in the Brocade 5100 and 5300 switches,
but not in a Brocade DCX or DCX-4S. Fabric IDs of default switches cannot be manually
changed.
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The default switch is able to participate in a logical fabric using extended ISLs (XISLs). In the
Brocade DCX and DCX-4S, the default switch will not participate in a logical fabric and will be a
purely layer two logical switch.
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EX_ and VEX_Ports are supported in the base switch. EX_Ports cannot be part of any other
switch other than the base switch.
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EX_ and VEX_Ports cannot connect to a fabric that has a logical switch with the Allow XISL use
mode on. The port will be disabled with the reason
Conflict: XISL capability domain
.
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Fabric OS v6.2.0 and later support external device sharing only 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 extended ISLs 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.