Brocade SAN Switches: Investigating Switch Outputs for Hardware Errors

Asset ID:	1-71-1020239.1
Update Date:	2017-10-30
Keywords:

Solution Type Technical Instruction Sure

Solution 1020239.1 : Brocade SAN Switches: Investigating Switch Outputs for Hardware Errors

Applies to:

Brocade 3900 Switch - Version Not Applicable and later
Brocade 4100 Switch - Version Not Applicable and later
Brocade 48000 Director - Version Not Applicable and later
Brocade 5000 Switch - Version Not Applicable and later
Brocade 5100 Switch - Version Not Applicable and later
All Platforms

Goal

The purpose of this document is to show how to find FC hardware errors on the SAN looking at Brocade FC switch data

Solution

Analyze the following switch outputs, hardware errors from command

porterrshow

       frames enc crc too too bad enc disc link loss loss frjt fbsy
      tx   rx   in err shrt long eof out   c3 fail sync sig
    =====================================================================
0:    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    1    0    8    0    0
1:    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    4    0    0
2: 255k 253k   0    0    0    0    0   52k   0    7 265 269    0    0
3: 5.3k 2.6k   0    0    0    0    0 155k   0    0 1.6k 3.1k   0    0

 
errdump

2007/09/12-16:34:37, [FW-1436], 169760,, WARNING, br12ksw0, Switch status change contributing factor Marginal ports: 1 marginal ports. (Port(s) 30)
Output from uptime example:
12:33pm up 7 days, 21:41, 1 user, load average: 0.36, 0.12, 0.07

Steps to follow

1. Run the "porterrshow" and "uptime" commands on the switch or inspect the command outputs in a supportshow/supportsave file.

- You are looking for a high number of link errors on the affected port/s. Keep in mind that these errors alone don't necessarily point to a current HW issue. Things to keep in mind are the up-time of the switch and if the errors are increasing or remaining steady. If the switch has been up and running for a while then the errors you see in porterrshow could be old errors. The way to determine if these are currently occurring is to run porterrshow at intervals and see if the errors are increasing or not for the affected port/s. If they are, then there is currently an issue on the affected port/s.

- The primary fields you are interested in are primarily: link fail, loss sync, loss sig

- Also, other fields to look at in combination with these are: enc in, crc err, enc out (NOTE: these errors along don't necessarily mean there is an issue but in combination with the primary fields, there most likely is an issue)

2. Run the "errdump" command on the switch or inspect the command output in a supportshow/supportsave file.

- You are looking for errors specific to the port in question or errors that occurred at the same time as the errors on the device.

- Look up any related errors from the errdump command in the "Fabric OS Message Reference" Guide for the particular FOS running on switch. Follow any "Recommended Action" advice per the Guide.

Note. You can reset Brocade FC errors to have clear view of the increasing counters

# statsclear
# slotstatclear

See also this other document
SAN Brocade FC switch - Encode Out Errors in porterrshow - How to identify bad SFP or FC Cable or FC device (Doc ID 1016436.1)

From old document
Sun StorageTek[TM] Brocade SAN Switches: Investigating switch outputs for hardware errors

Brocade, switch, hardware, sfp, cable, error, flaky, link, DCX, 3850, 3900, 12K, 24K, 4100, 200E, 48K, 4900, 7500, 5000, 5100, 5300, 300, access, device, normalized, porterrshow, errdump, uptime, sfp, hardware, audited

Change History
Date: 2009-03-11
User Name: jj84789
Action:
Comment:
Version: 1

References

<NOTE:1016436.1> - SAN Brocade FC switch - Encode Out Errors in porterrshow - How to identify bad SFP or FC Cable or FC device

Attachments

This solution has no attachment