Fabric OS Administrator's Guide v7.0.0 (53-1002148-02, June 2011)

Fabric OS Administrator’s Guide 223
53-1002148-02
Management model for logical switches
10
Management model for logical switches
You can use one common IP address for the hardware that is shared by all of the logical switches in
the chassis and you can set up individual IPv4 addresses for each Virtual Fabric. For a
management host to manage a logical switch using the Internet Protocol over Fibre Channel (IPFC)
IP address, it must be physically connected to the Virtual Fabric using a host bus adapter (HBA).
All user operations are classified into one of the following:
• Chassis management operations
These are operations that span logical switch boundaries, such as:
- Logical switch configuration (creating, deleting, or modifying logical switches)
- Account management (determining which accounts can access which logical switches)
- Field-replaceable unit (FRU) management (slot commands, such as slotShow)
- Firmware management (firmware upgrade, HA failover)
• Logical switch operations
These are operations that are limited to the logical switch, such as displaying or changing port
states. Logical switch operations include all operations that are not covered in the chassis
management operations.
When a user logs in, the user is assigned an active context, or active logical switch. This context
filters the view that the user gets, and determines which ports the user can see. You can change
the active context. For example, if you are working with logical switch 1, you can change the context
to logical switch 5. When you change the context to logical switch 5, you only see the ports that are
assigned to that logical switch. You do not see any of the other ports in the chassis.
The scope of logical switch operations is defined by the active context. When you are in the context
of a logical switch, you can perform port, switch, and fabric-level operations, subject to Role-Based
Access Control (RBAC) rules.
If you have permission to execute chassis-level commands, you can do so, regardless of which
logical switch context you are in.
Account management and Virtual Fabrics
When user accounts are created, they are assigned a list of logical fabrics to which they can log in
and a home logical fabric (home FID). When you connect to a physical chassis, the home FID
defines the logical switch to which you are logged in by default. You can change to a different
logical switch context, as described in “Changing the context to a different logical fabric” on
page 237.
When you are logged in to a logical switch, the system prompt changes to display the FID of that
switch. The following are example prompts for when you are logged in to the default logical switch
(FID = 128) and a user-defined logical switch (FID = 15):
switch:FID128:admin>
switch:FID15:admin>
Refer to Chapter 5, “Managing User Accounts,” for information about creating user accounts and
assigning FIDs to user accounts.