Fcping - Brocade Communications Systems 8 Command Reference Manual

fcPing

Sends a Fibre Channel Extended Link Service (ELS) Echo request to a pair of ports or to a single
destination, or executes a SuperPing.
Synopsis fcping [--number frames][--length size][--interval wait][--pattern pattern] [--bypasszone]
[--quiet] [source] destination
fcping --allpaths] [-printisl] [-maxTries M][-covcount N][-delay N] destination
fcping --help
Description Use this command to send a Fibre Channel ELS Echo request to a pair of ports (a source and a
destination), to a single device, or to execute a SuperPing that exercises all interswitch links (ISLs)
and internal links in different paths that route to the destination device.
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Notes The ELS Echo may not be supported on all devices. In such cases, the response could be either an
ELS reject or a request timeout.
By default, fcPing sends five ELS Echo requests to each port. When a device does not respond to
the ELS Echo request, further debugging may be needed to determine, whether the device does not
support ELS Echo, or whether the request is rejected for some other reason. Do not assume that
the device is not connected.
Fabric OS Command Reference
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When you use fcPing with a source and a destination, the command performs a zoning check
between the two ports. In addition, two Fibre Channel ELS requests are generated. The first
ELS request is from the domain controller to the source port identifier. The second ELS request
is from the domain controller to the destination port identifier. The ELS Echo request elicits an
ELS Echo response from a port identifier in the fabric and is useful for validating link
connectivity.
The source and destination port identifiers can be specified as a 24-bit Fibre Channel port
identifier (PISD), a port World Wide Name, or a node World Wide Name. The two port identifiers
are then used to determine if the identifiers are zoned together.
When you use fcPing to probe a single destination, an ELS Echo is sent to the specified
destination and a response obtained. The destination can be a switch WWN, a domain ID, or a
switch domain controller ID. No zoning check is performed when a single device is probed.
When you use fcPing with the --allpaths option, the command exercises a "SuperPing."
Superping exercises all ISLs and the internal links included in the paths that route to the
destination. The SuperPing command collects statistical data of all the covered paths and their
port and provides optional parameters to selectively display the data. SuperPing takes only one
argument, that is, the destination port identifier. To execute SuperPing for two destination, you
must issue the command separately for each destination.
Superping facilitates troubleshooting of links that experience problems. When an echo frame is
dropped, all the ISLs and internal links potentially traversed by this frame are marked as
failure. If a fabric topology is considered fully redundant, that is, at each hop there are multiple
paths to reach a destination, a high percentage of errors are recorded on the link that
experiences errors.
Logical Fabrics: When executed in a Logical Fabric from a switch to a destination device
connected through the base fabric, SuperPing exercises all paths in the base fabric along with
the ISLs in the logical fabric. The path output indicates the LISLs and the base switch. Refer to
the example section for an illustration.
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fcPing
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