Today, in the highlight: FEX pre-provisioning.
What is a FEX? It is Fabric Extender, a “remote line card” used in Cisco Nexus series switches. It is managed through its parent switch (like Nexus 5000 or Nexus 7000) but looks externally like a traditional data center access switch.
In some cases you would like to configure the FEX interfaces before the FEX is actually online. For example, when enabling NPV mode the configuration is deleted and you would maybe like to configure the ports before the links go up on the FEXes.
First, let’s try to show the configuration of the not-yet-existing FEX port:
nexus5596(config)# sh run int e101/1/1
^
Invalid range at '^' marker.
The configuration does not exist, and you cannot enter the interface configuration mode for the FEX ports because they don’t exist yet as the FEX is not yet connected. Let’s pre-provision the FEX 101:
nexus5596(config)# slot 101 nexus5596(config-slot)# provision model ? N2K-B22HP Fabric Extender 16x10G Module N2K-C2148T Fabric Extender 48x1G 4x10G Module N2K-C2232P Fabric Extender 32x10G Module N2K-C2232TM Fabric Extender 32x10G Module - Zephyr N2K-C2248GV+P Fabric Extender 48x1G 4x10G POE Module N2K-C2248T Fabric Extender 48x1G 4x10G Module N2K-N2224TP Fabric Extender 24x1G 2x10G SFP+ Module N55-M16FP Cisco 16 port Port Fiber Channel Expansion Module 16 x SFP N55-M16P Cisco 16x10G Ethernet Expansion Module N55-M16UP Cisco 16x10G Flexible Ethernet Expansion Module N55-M8P8FP Cisco 8 Port 1/2/4/8G FC + 8 Port 10G Ethernet Expansion Module N5K-M1008 Cisco 8 Port Fiber Channel Expansion Module 8 x SFP N5K-M1060 Cisco 6 Port Fiber Channel Expansion Module 6 x SFP N5K-M1404 Expansion Module 4 x 10GBase-T LAN, 4 x Fiber Channel N5K-M1600 Cisco 6-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet SFP Module 6 x SFP nexus5596(config-slot)# provision model n2k-n2224TP nexus5596(config-slot)# exit nexus5596(config)# sh run int e101/1/1 !Command: show running-config interface Ethernet101/1/1 !Time: Wed Nov 9 17:02:57 2011 version 5.0(3)N2(2a) interface Ethernet101/1/1 nexus5596(config)#
As you can see, after pre-provisioning the FEX with the “slot” and “provision model” commands the interface appears in the configuration (empty interface configuration) and you can start configuring the port.
As a side note, the model list above also includes a FEX that has not yet been officially announced: “N2K-C2248GV+P Fabric Extender 48x1G 4x10G POE Module”.
this will be very useful to us. thanks for posting!
the ‘Enabling NPV mode’ URL you’ve posted above is now dead, new URL is now http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/datacenter/nexus5000/sw/san_switching/Cisco_Nexus_5000_Series_NX-OS_SAN_Switching_Configuration_Guide_chapter5.html#task_1550221
BTW: Thanks for posting! Keep it up.
Thanks Miguel! Fixed the link.
Not available on N7k ?
Not available on Nexus 7k ?