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21.7.  Configuring a Fibre-Channel Over Ethernet Interface

Setting up and deploying a Fibre-channel over ethernet (FCoE) interface requires two packages:
Once these packages are installed, perform the following procedure to enable FCoE over a virtual LAN (VLAN):
Procedure 21.3. Configuring an ethernet interface to use FCoE
  1. Configure a new VLAN by copying an existing network script (e.g. /etc/fcoe/cfg-eth0) to the name of the ethernet device that supports FCoE. This will provide you with a default file to configure. Given that the FCoE device is ethX, run:
    cp /etc/fcoe/cfg-eth0 /etc/fcoe/cfg-ethX
  2. If you want the device to automatically load during boot time, set ONBOOT=yes in the corresponding /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ethX file. For example, if the FCoE device is eth2, then edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth2 accordingly.
  3. Start the data center bridging daemon (dcbd) using the following command:
    /etc/init.d/lldpad start
  4. Enable data center bridging on the ethernet interface using the following commands:
    dcbtool sc ethX dcb on
    Then, enable FCoE on the ethernet interface by running:
    dcbtool sc ethX app:fcoe e:1

    Note

    These commands will only work if the dcbd settings for the ethernet interface were not changed.
  5. Load the FCoE device now using:
    ifconfig ethX up
  6. Start FCoE using:
    /etc/init.d/fcoe start
    The FCoE device should appear shortly, assuming all other settings on the fabric are correct. To view configured FCoE devices, run:
    fcoeadmin -i
After correctly configuring the ethernet interface to use FCoE, Red Hat recommends that you set FCoE and lldpad to run at startup. To do so, use chkconfig, as in:
chkconfig lldpad on
chkconfig fcoe on

Warning

Do not run software-based DCB or LLDP on CNAs that implement DCB.
Some Combined Network Adapters (CNAs) implement the Data Center Bridging (DCB) protocol in firmware. The DCB protocol assumes that there is just one originator of DCB on a particular network link. This means that any higher-level software implementation of DCB, or Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP), must be disabled on CNAs that implement DCB.