SERVER CONNECTIVITY

Boot from SAN: Fabric-Based Boot LUN Discovery

Describes a recommended setup and configuration for Fabric-Based Boot LUN Discovery in a Brocade storage network using Brocade Host Bus Adapters (HBAs). CONTENTS
Executive Summary........................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 2 Recommended Setup ................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 2 Configuring the Server and HBA ................................................................................................................................... 3 Configuring the Brocade Switch .................................................................................................................................... 3

SERVER CONNECTIVITY

TECHNICAL BRIEF

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Boot from SAN is becoming more popular in data centers. The most important reasons are rapid server provisioning, rapid recovery from server failure, improved reliability, and reduced power and cooling. Brocade Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) support boot from SAN in all types of environments. Specific Brocade features make boot from SAN easier to deploy, such as putting a label with the port World Wide Name (pWWN) on the bracket of the HBA and a feature called Fabric-Based Boot LUN Discovery. Fabric-Based Boot LUN Discovery can be deployed in a Brocade SAN only using Brocade HBAseliminating the manual process of boot LUN configuration of each HBA from each server console. This capability dramatically improves configuration and reliability, containing operational costs and making the adoption of diskless servers a practical alternative for even large data centers. NOTE: IBM UEFI and other UEFI-based servers do NOT support this unique Brocade feature, because of their different discovery processes. The figure below describes the process.
1. Server initiates boot 2. HBA queries fabric for boot LUN configuration 3. Fabric responds with boot LUN 4. Server boots OS from specified LUN

4 1 Windows
Brocade HBA

Whats my boot LUN?

3
Boot from LUN 1

Windows

Brocade FC Switch

Red Hat Distributed boot LUN configuration repository VMware

SAN

Boot LUN 3 Boot LUN 4 Boot LUN 1 Boot LUN 2

Brocade DCX Backbone Centralized management of boot LUN configuration

Array 1

Array 2

RECOMMENDED SETUP
This paper describes at a high level how to configure the server, HBA, and Brocade switch and include code samples; however, it does not describe in detail how to flash the HBA BIOS or upload the latest version of Brocade Fabric OS (FOS) on a Brocade SAN switch or director. Note that Brocade FOS 6.2 or later and HBA BIOS version 1.1 or later are required, and we recommend always using the latest BIOS and FOS version. Other than that, no additional hardware or extra license or software is needed to deploy Fabric-Based Boot LUN Discovery. Use the FOS Command-Line Interface (CLI) for configuration: neither Brocade DCFM nor Brocade Web Tools are required.

Boot from SAN: Fabric-Based Boot LUN Discovery

SERVER CONNECTIVITY

TECHNICAL BRIEF

Configuring the Server and HBA

Brocade HBAs are already configured to support Fabric-Based Boot LUN Discovery in the default BIOS setting. Verify that the BIOS is enabled and that the Boot LUN is set to Auto Discover, as shown in the screen capture below. After that there is no need to touch the server or the BIOS again.

Configuring the Brocade Switch

In addition to zoning and masking, the SAN administrator needs to configure an additional Boot LUN (BLUN) zone on the switch. At server boot, the Brocade HBA (set to Auto Discover) makes a connection to the switch, retrieves the remote pWWN and the LUN from this BLUN zone, and tries to boot from this LUN. To configure the BLUN zone and add it to the configuration (here config), use the FOS CLI zoneCreate command:
HBA_pWWN=100000051E0FAA21; Storage_pWWN=50060E801042C231; LUN=0000000000000000 zonecreate "BFA_100000051E0FAA21_BLUN", "00:00:00:00:50:06:0e:80; 00:00:00:01:10:42:c2:31; 00:00:00:02:00:00:00:00; 00:00:00:03:00:00:00:00" cfgadd config, "BFA_100000051E0FAA21_BLUN" cfgsave cfgenable config

Changing the LUN to boot from is easy, as the number of that LUN is coded in the third zone member as shown in the example below, in which the LUN is changed to FF:
zonedelete "BFA_100000051E0FAA21_BLUN" zonecreate "BFA_100000051E0FAA21_BLUN", "00:00:00:00:50:06:0e:80; 00:00:00:01:10:42:c2:31; 00:00:00:02:00:FF:00:00; 00:00:00:03:00:00:00:00" cfgsave cfgenable config

Boot from SAN: Fabric-Based Boot LUN Discovery

SERVER CONNECTIVITY

TECHNICAL BRIEF

Brocade DCFM or Web Tools can also be used to verify the Fabric-Based Boot LUN Discovery zone as shown in the screen capture below (which illustrates a different example from the one above).

Here is another example with the same HBA but a different storage LUN 0:
zonecreate "bfa_100000051e0faa21_blun", "00:00:00:00:50:00:00:e0; 00:00:00:01:d0:44:29:86; 00:00:00:02:00:00:00:00; 00:00:00:03:00:00:00:00" cfgadd HYPERV_TEST, "bfa_100000051e0faa21_blun" cfgenable HYPERV_TEST

The Brocade Command Line Utility (BCU), loaded with the driver package, provides commands that are comparable to Brocade HCM features for configuring, troubleshooting, and monitoring the HBA and device connection.
bcu command --operand synopsis Syntax: Example: bcu adapter -query <ad_id>

The bcu boot blunZone command line helps to create the zoneCreate command line for the switch FOS, which can then be copied and pasted. Here is the same example but with a different LUN 0xff:
BCU boot -blunZone c BLUN p 10:00:00:05:1e:0f:aa:21 r 50:00:00:e0:d0:44:29:86 l ff zonecreate "bfa_100000051e0faa21_blun", "00:00:00:00:50:00:00:e0; 00:00:00:01:d0:44:29:86; 00:00:00:02:00:ff:00:00; 00:00:00:03:00:00:00:00"

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Boot from SAN: Fabric-Based Boot LUN Discovery