Trying to change a Brocade DCX port to be an EX port

Actually I have 8 of these switches, but if it works on one, it works on the other 7 as well

Hi RRR,

It's a while since I did this, so apologies if this turns out to be unhelpful. Did you enable the router and configure the backbone fabric ID. Something like the following:

fosconfig --disable fcr

fcrconfigure

fosconfig --enable fcr

(Actually, there is a default back-bone fabric ID of 128 anyway).

No, I didn't try this. I used the CLI manual and all I got was the portcfgexport command. But that one didn't help and from the GUI I remember I only had to change the port type to EX and that was that. But tomorrow I'll give it a try!!

Hi Gents,

Integrated Routing license is required to use FCR without installing a FR4-18i / FX8-24 blade. On the other hand, you need to create a base VF in order to use Integrated Routing. Maybe you can configure the whole DCX-4S as a router but a lot of ports whould be wasted...

Rgds

I do have FX8-12 blades in each of them. Do I still need that license?

Ah! I do have the license on the switch!

It turned out routing was disabled, but even after enableing it, I still can't get it to work. Here's my output:

switch-name:FID128:admin> fosconfig --disable fcr

FC Routing service is already disabled

switch-name:FID128:admin> fcrconfigure

This command is not allowed when virtual fabric mode is on.

switch-name:FID128:admin> fosconfig --enable fcr

FC Routing service is enabled

switch-name:FID128:admin> portcfgexport 1/0

        Port  1/0  info

Admin:                 disabled

State:                 NOT OK

Pid format:            Not Applicable

Operate mode:          Brocade Native

I'm a bit concerned about the port state. I mean: how can this be not ok?

executing porcfgexport 1/0 without other parameters just shows the port info, but does not configure the port as an ex-port. Please,try the following (you may need to disable/enable the port):

portcfgexport 1/0 -i 1 -f

It is normal that it appears as NOT OK, it will change once you have successfully connected this port to an E-port.

Rgds

switch-name:FID128:admin> portcfgexport 1/0 -i 1 -f 128

Error: EX-Port related operations are allowed on base switch only, not on any other logical switch.

I'm getting this error, no matter what option I try

That's an easy one. If you're using VF you have to configure a VF as base switch in order to configure an EX-port.

To create a Base VF: lscfg  --create -base

Then add the port  to this new Base VF: lscfg --config -port 

then connect to the new VF: setcontext

and now you should be able to configure the port as EXport.

Take a look at the Admin guide because I may writing by heart and some command may be incomplete/wrong.