Brocade Loopback and E-port notes

[bluecmd]

This is a bug/feature-request/documentation issues for documenting what is know about Brocade Loopback and E-port behaviour.

Quest

This is a side-quest for acquiring more knowledge. No feature currently depends on this. It would be cool to understand how this is implemented by Brocade to deepen the understanding of real-world FC equipment.

Status

Observed behavior is that the port links up to AC state just fine, but is then sent a Link Reset (LR) at which point the idle-word seems to switch to ARB(AL_PA) with AL_PA=0xEF.

What needs to be done?

• Map the 8b/10b traffic that is sent between two different Brocade switches (E-ports)

# TODO: No port status dump for this

• Map the 8b/10b traffic that is sent between a loopback on a Brocade switch. (Loopback)

Index Port Address Media Speed       State   Proto
==================================================
  27  27   010000   id    8G	   Online      FC  Loopback->Port 31 
  31  31   010100   id    8G	   Online      FC  Loopback->Port 27

• Map the 8b/10b traffic that is sent between two virtual switches on a single Brocade switch. (

  27  27   010000   id    8G	   Online      FC  E-Port  segmented,10:00:00:05:1e:eb:e1:80 (ESC mismatch, Fabric ID)(Trunk master)  

Extra questions

• What is this ESC missmatch Fabirc Id message about? Is it because we are linking up the same switch to itself? Try with another switch to figure out maybe.