Making Basic Connections; Connecting To Devices; Connecting To Other Switches; Linking Through A Gateway - HP A7533A - Brocade 4Gb SAN Switch Base Administrator's Manual

switch:admin> portenable portnumber
where portnumber is the port number of the port you want to enable.
For 4/256 SAN Director and DC Director: Enter the following command:
switch:admin> portenable slotnumber/portnumber
where slotnumber and portnumber are the slot and port numbers of the port you want to enable.
(Slots are numbered 1 through 4 and 7 through 10, counting from left to right.)
If the port is connected to another switch, the fabric may be reconfigured. If the port is connected to one or
more devices, these devices become available to the fabric.
If you change port configurations during a switch failover, the ports may become disabled. To bring the
ports online, re-issue the portEnable command after the failover is complete.

Making basic connections

You can make basic connections to devices and to other switches.
Before connecting a switch to a fabric that contains switches running different firmware versions, you must
first set the same PID format on all switches. The presence of different PID formats in a fabric causes fabric
segmentation.
• For information on PID formats and related procedures, see
• For information on configuring the routing of connections, see
3. For information on configuring extended interswitch connections, see
on page 361.

Connecting to devices

To minimize port logins, power off all devices before connecting them to the switch. For devices that cannot
be powered off, first use the portDisable command to disable the port on the switch, and then connect
the device. When powering the devices back on, wait for each device to complete the fabric login before
powering on the next one.

Connecting to other switches

See the hardware reference guide for your specific switch for interswitch link (ISL) connection and cable
management information. The standard or default ISL mode is L0. ISL Mode L0 is a static mode, with the
following maximum ISL distances:
• 10 km at 1 Gbps
• 5 km at 2 Gbps
• 2.5 km at 4 Gbps
• 1.25 km at 8 Gbps
ISL mode L0 is available on all Fabric OS releases. When you upgrade from Fabric OS 5.3.0 to Fabric 6.x
or later, all extended ISL ports are set automatically to L0 mode.
For information on extended ISL modes, which enable longer distance interswitch links, see
Extended Fabrics" on page 361.

Linking through a gateway

A gateway merges SANs into a single fabric by establishing point-to-point E_Port connectivity between two
Fibre Channel switches that are separated by a network with a protocol such as IP or SONET.
Except for link initialization, gateways are transparent to switches; the gateway simply provides E_Port
connectivity from one switch to another.
By default, switch ports initialize links using the Exchange Link Parameters (ELP) mode 1. However,
gateways expect initialization with ELP mode 2, also referred to as ISL R_RDY mode. Therefore, to enable
two switches to link through a gateway, the ports on both switches must be set for ELP mode 2.
"Selecting a PID format" on page 447.
"Routing traffic" on page 205.
"Administering Extended
Fabric OS 6.1.x administrator guide
Fabrics"
"Administering
45