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Chapter
13

Administering NPIV

In this chapter
•NPIV overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
•Configuring NPIV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
•Enabling and disabling NPIV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
•Viewing NPIV port configuration information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

NPIV overview

N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) enables a single Fibre Channel protocol port to appear as multiple,
distinct ports, providing separate port identification within the fabric for each operating system
image behind the port (as if each operating system image had its own unique physical port). NPIV
assigns a different virtual port ID to each Fibre Channel protocol device. NPIV is designed to enable
you to allocate virtual addresses without affecting your existing hardware implementation. The
virtual port has the same properties as an N_Port, and is therefore capable of registering with all
services of the fabric. This chapter does not discuss the Access Gateway feature. For more
information on the Access Gateway feature, refer to the Access Gateway Administrator’s Guide.
Each NPIV device has a unique device PID, Port WWN, and Node WWN, and should act the same as
all other physical devices in the fabric; in other words, multiple virtual devices emulated by NPIV
appear no different than regular devices connected to a non-NPIV port. The same zoning rules
apply to NPIV devices as non-NPIV devices. Zones can be defined by domain,port notation, by WWN
zoning, or both. To perform zoning to the granularity of the virtual N_Port IDs, you must use
WWN-based zoning.
If you are using domain,port zoning for an NPIV port, and all the virtual PIDs associated with the
port are included in the zone, then a port login (PLOGI) to a non-existent virtual PID is not blocked
by the switch; rather, it is delivered to the device attached to the NPIV port. In cases where the
device is not capable of handling such unexpected PLOGIs, you should use WWN-based zoning.
The following example shows the number of NPIV devices in the output of the switchShow
command. The number of NPIV devices is equal to the sum of the base port plus the number of
NPIV public devices. The base port is the N_Port listed in the switchShow output. Based on the
formula, index 010000 shows only 1 NPIV device and index 010300 shows 222 NPIV devices.
Example of NPIV devices
switch:admin> switchshow
switchName: 5100
switchType: 71.2
switchState: Online
switchMode: Access Gateway Mode
switchWwn: 10:00:00:05:1e:41:49:3d
switchBeacon: OFF
Index Port Address Media Speed State Proto