Dell Brocade G620 Brocade 8.0.1 Fabric OS Administratiors Guide - Page 47

Performing Basic Configuration Tasks Brocade switches On Brocade switches, you must set the Ethernet and chassis management IP interfaces. Setting the chassis management IP address eliminates the need to know which CP is active and automatically connects the requestor to the currently active CP. You can continue to use a static Ethernet addressing system or allow the DHCP client to automatically acquire Ethernet addresses. Configure the Ethernet interface IP address, subnet mask, and gateway addresses in one of the following manners: ∙ Using static Ethernet addresses (refer to Static Ethernet addresses on page 49) ∙ Activating DHCP (refer to DHCP activation on page 51) NOTE When you change the Ethernet interface settings, open connections such as SSH or Telnet may be dropped. Reconnect using the new Ethernet IP address information or change the Ethernet settings using a console session through the serial port to maintain your session during the change. You must connect through the serial port to set the Ethernet IP address if the Ethernet network interface is not configured already. For details, refer to Connecting to Fabric OS through the serial port on page 38. Virtual Fabrics and the Ethernet interface On the Brocade DCX 8510 Backbones and X6 Directors, the single-chassis IP address and subnet mask are assigned to the management Ethernet ports on the front panels of the CPs. These addresses allow access to the chassis--more specifically, the active CP of the chassis--and not individual logical switches. The IP addresses can also be assigned to each CP individually. This allows for direct communication with a CP, including the standby CP. Each CP has two management Ethernet ports on its front panel. These two physical ports are bonded together to create a single, logical Ethernet port, and it is the logical Ethernet port to which IP addresses are assigned. IPv4 addresses assigned to individual Virtual Fabrics are assigned to IP over Fibre Channel (IPFC) network interfaces. In Virtual Fabrics environments, a single chassis can be assigned to multiple fabrics, each of which is logically distinct and separate from one another. Each IPFC point of connection to a given chassis needs a separate IPv4 address and prefix to be accessible to a management host. For more information on how to set up these IPFC interfaces to your Virtual Fabric, refer to Managing Virtual Fabrics on page 267. Management Ethernet port bonding The two external Ethernet ports of a CP (CP8 or CPX6) blade can be bound together as a single logical network interface. This configuration uses an active-standby failover model to provide automatic failover support for the primary Ethernet port on the blade. If the primary Ethernet port fails (due to something other than power loss), the second Ethernet port immediately takes over to ensure link layer communication is retained. One of the physical Ethernet ports is selected as the active interface. The second interface is set as the standby interface. All traffic is transmitted over the active interface. No traffic is transmitted over the standby interface, unless the active interface is determined to be no longer connected; at which point, the second interface is made active. When active, all the Fabric OS kernel modules and applications on the CP blade will use the logical network interface named "bond0" instead of "eth0". NOTE On bootup, physical port eth0 is always made active if it is connected. The CP blade contains multiple Ethernet devices (including eth0 and eth3), which map to the two Ethernet ports on the front of the CP blade. Other Ethernet devices on the blade are reserved for use by the operating system. Brocade Fabric OS Administration Guide, 8.0.1 53-1004111-02 47