Tag Archives: Brocade

How to get a Brocade switch configured for Dell EMC SRS (ESRS)

Posted by on May 21, 2019 No comments

Perform a

esrsconfig -show

to check whether the settings are saved to te switch. If the switch shows this output:

fcsw-01:admin> esrsconfig –show

ESRS SERVER AND PRODUCT CONFIGURATION
=======================================

ESRS Server IP: 10.20.30.40
ESRS Server Port: 9443
Product Serial Number: BRCCCD1946R04G
Product Model Number: SWITCH-BROCADE-B-GW
Status: Device is not Managed by ESRS

ESRS is not yet active.

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How to set the DNS server in a Brocade switch

Posted by on October 10, 2017 No comments

In order to do DNS lookups in a Brocade SAN switch (for example to read the NTP server’s time), you need to configure DNS first.

By using the command “dnsconfig”, you can configure which 2 DNS servers the switch can use to do lookups:

dnsconfig

Now you see a 4-item menu:

Enter option
1 Display Domain Name Service (DNS) configuration
2 Set DNS configuration
3 Remove DNS configuration
4 Quit
Select an item: (1..4) [4]

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Troubleshooting connectivity issues on a Brocade SAN

Posted by on May 19, 2015 No comments
Fog

I recently had the “pleasure” to figure out what was wrong with a Brocade based SAN environment. Servers were loosing connectivity on one of the HBAs, but all links were online and further investigation was necessary.

Going through all the error counters on each of the long wave SFPs finally revealed one of the SFPs’ health as marginal (hence it was still online, but very buggy indeed). The webtools GUI showed this particular SFP als orange instead of green. Disabling and re-enabling this SFP didn’t help and I decided to shut this SFP for good. And guess what: all my troubles went away. The trunk this SFP was in went back to a non-redundant, but healthy state and all servers got back to normal operations and got their redundant paths back.

So to summarize the story: look for marginal or even faulted SFPs when vague connectivity issues arise. If links are redundant, shutting the faulty one might help.

How to set the NTP server, time and timezone in a Brocade switch

Posted by on May 13, 2015 1 comment
NTP server

Previously I wrote about setting the NTP, time and timezone settings in a Cisco switch and now it’s time for the same in a Brocade switch.

It’s in fact not that hard to do. Log in to the CLI and use the following commands:

tsclockserver 1.2.3.4

or

tsclockserver ntp.domain.ext (make sure the DNS is set up properly first)

This will set the NTP server address in this switch to ip address 1.2.3.4. Set this only on the principal switch, as this switch will propagate the time to the other switches in the fabric.

To set the timezone use the following command:

tstimezone –interactive

(please note that there’s a double “-” before “interactive”)
This will ask for the region and country the switch is located in.

Choose 8 for Europe and 34 for the Netherlands and after verifying the setting, choose 1 (yes) to set the TZ.

Use the “date” command to verify the current time and date and TZ region:

Wed May 13 01:08:32 CEST 2015

This makes life a lot easier when troubleshooting!