NAME

       fcoemon - Open-FCoE service daemon

SYNOPSIS

       fcoemon [-f|--foreground] [-l|--legacy] [-d|--debug] [-s|--syslog]

       fcoemon -h|--help

       fcoemon -v|--version

DESCRIPTION

       The fcoemon daemon is the core component of the Open-FCoE management service.

       The primary function of fcoemon is to control FCoE instances. fcoemon will create, destroy, reset, enable
       and disable FCoE instances based on system configuration, administrative commands, and runtime events.

       On  startup,  fcoemon  will  create  FCoE instances defined by the configuration files (see FILES section
       below). Since FCoE typically relies on the  Data  Center  Bridging  (DCB)  capabilities  of  an  Ethernet
       interface,  fcoemon  establishes  a connection with the LLDP daemon lldpad to query the status of the DCB
       features on relevant Ethernet interfaces and receive DCB configuration change events.

       During runtime, fcoemon will monitor network and lldpad events for the relevant Ethernet  interfaces  and
       perform  appropriate  actions  (create,  destroy,  enable,  disable)  on the FCoE instances. fcoemon also
       provides a client interface via which the fcoeadm utility is able to issue commands.

       Installation of the fcoe-utils package will set up an fcoe service which will control  the  execution  of
       the fcoemon daemon.

OPTIONS

       -f, --foreground
           Run fcoemon in the foreground.

       -d, --debug
           Enable debugging messages.

       -l, --legacy
           Force  fcoemon to use the legacy /sys/module/libfcoe/parameters/ interface. The default is to use the
           newer /sys/bus/fcoe/ interfaces if they are available.

       -s, --syslog
           Use syslogd for logging. The default behavior is to log to stdout and stderr.

       -h, --help
           Show help message with basic usage instructions

       -v, --version
           Show the version of the fcoemon command.

TERMINOLOGY

       DCB
           Data Center Bridging A set of Ethernet enhancement standards developed  by  the  IEEE  802.1  Working
           Group.

           See http://www.ieee802.org/1/pages/dcbridges.html for more information.

       DCBX
           DCB  Capabilities  Exchange  Protocol,  implemented  by  the DCB module of lldpad. DCBX exchanges DCB
           capabilities and configuration with a link partner as a series of values transferred using  the  Link
           Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP).

       PFC
           Priority-based Flow Control, a DCB feature.

       App:FCoE
           The FCoE instance of application specific parameters in DCBX.

CRITERIA USED FOR CONTROLLING THE FCOE INSTANCE

       fcoemon  uses  two  information sources for determining when to create an FCoE instance: the state of the
       network interface, which may be a VLAN interface, and, if required for the FCoE instance,  the  state  of
       the DCB configuration on the physical Ethernet interface.

       First  of  all,  the network interface must be "up" for the FCoE instance to be created. Secondly, if the
       FCoE configuration indicates that DCB is required, then the following criteria must be  satisfied  before
       the FCoE interface is created:

       •   DCB is enabled on the Ethernet interface.

       •   The PFC DCB feature is enabled and operational.

       •   The App:FCoE DCB feature is enabled and operational.

       •   The priority indicated by the App:FCoE feature is also enabled for PFC.

       Once the FCoE instance is created by fcoemon, it will only be destroyed under the following conditions:

       •   The driver for the Ethernet interface is unloaded.

       •   A user administratively destroys the FCoE instance using fcoeadm.

       •   The fcoemon daemon is terminated.

       If DCB is required for the FCoE instance, and the DCB settings change after the interface is created, the
       following criteria are used to disable the FCoE instance:

       •   DCB is disabled on the Ethernet interface.

       •   The App:FCoE DCB feature is not enabled.

       •   The  App:FCoE  and PFC features are operational AND the priority indicated by App:FCoE is not enabled
           for PFC.

       Otherwise, the FCoE instance will always remain enabled.

CONFIGURATION

       Once the fcoe-utils and lldpad packages have been installed and the corresponding services  are  running,
       there are a few simple configuration steps required to get an FCoE instance up and running. The following
       assumes that DCB will be required for the interface.

       •   Ensure  that  the  configuration  on  the  peer  device  (e.g. FCoE capable switch) has the necessary
           configurations (VLANs, DCB, DCBX).

       •   Configure any needed VLAN interfaces on the local system.

       •   Create and configure  /etc/fcoe/cfg-<ifname>  files  for  the  network  interfaces  over  which  FCoE
           instances  need to be created. See the FILES sections for details. Note that ifname may be for a VLAN
           interface.

       •   Restart the fcoe service (i.e.  fcoemon).

       •   The default DCB configuration of an Ethernet interface  managed  by  lldpad  requires  the  following
           configuration using dcbtool.

               dcbtool sc ethX dcb on          <-- enable DCB on the interface
               dcbtool sc ethX app:fcoe e:1    <-- enable App:FCoE on the interface

       These  steps  only  need to be done one time. Note that if other DCB configuration changes have been made
       with dcbtool, then additional changes may need to be made in  order  to  satisfy  the  DCB  criteria  for
       creating an FCoE instance. Consult dcbtool for details.

       Once  these  configuration  steps  have  been  performed,  use  fcoeadm  to  query the status of the FCoE
       instances.

FILES

   /etc/fcoe/config
       This is the primary configuration file for the fcoe system service. The default options in this file are:
       DEBUG="no" and USE_SYSLOG="yes". The former is used to enable debugging messages from  the  fcoe  service
       script  and  fcoemon  (via  the  --debug option). The latter is to indicate if the log messages are to be
       output to the system log (via  the  --syslog  option).  SUPPORTED_DRIVERS  is  the  list  of  drivers  to
       automatically load during fcoe service start. Any changes to this file will require a restart of the fcoe
       service.

   /etc/sysconfig/fcoe
       On  systemd-enabled systems, this is the primary configuration file used for the fcoe system service. Add
       --debug to FCOEMON_OPTS to enable debug log messages. Any changes to this file will require a restart  of
       the fcoe service.

   /etc/fcoe/cfg-<ifname>
       These  files  are  read  by  fcoemon  on initialization. They are used to indicate which Ethernet or VLAN
       interfaces  should  have  FCoE  instances  created.  The  option  values  in  this  file  normally   are:
       FCOE_ENABLE="yes",  DCB_REQUIRED="yes",  and  AUTO_VLAN="yes", though if the variable values are omitted,
       they default to "no".

       FCOE_ENABLE
           is used to enable/disable creation of the FCoE instance. If FCoE_ENABLE is  set  to  "no",  then  the
           other configuration values have no effect.

       DCB_REQUIRED
           indicates if the DCB service is required on the Ethernet interface.

       AUTO_VLAN
           indicates  if  VLAN  discovery  should be performed. If AUTO_VLAN is set to "yes", then once the link
           configuration has been validated, fcoemon will run  run  the  FIP  VLAN  discovery  protocol  on  the
           Ethernet  interface.  Network interfaces for any discovered FCoE VLANs will be automatically created,
           if they are not already configured, and FCoE instances will be created on the VLAN interfaces. If the
           network interface specified by the filename is already a VLAN interface,  the  AUTO_VLAN  setting  is
           ignored.

       MODE
           indicates whether operation will be in fabric or vn2vn mode. The default is fabric.

       FIP_RESP
           indicates  whether  a FIP responder should be activated on this device to support VLAN discovery in a
           vn2vn environment. The default is "no". Often this will be used on a vn2vn node  also  serving  as  a
           target.  When  using this option, the AUTO_VLAN should not be set and the supported VLANs should have
           configuration files supplied, constituting a static VLAN configuration that provides the  information
           for  the  FIP  responder  to  return. This should be set on a base device, which should probably have
           FCOE_ENABLE set to "no" since presumably FCoE operation will be on the configured VLANs.

       Note that the attached Ethernet peer device (e.g. FCoE capable switch port) must have compatible settings
       For DCB and FCoE to function properly.

   /etc/init.d/fcoe
       This is the fcoe system service script. This script is invoked by the init  process  or  by  the  service
       command  to  start  and  stop  the  fcoemon.  On  systemd-enabled  systems, fcoemon is controlled via the
       fcoe.service unit.

VLAN NAMING CONVENTIONS

       If a new VLAN device is created (see the description of the AUTO_VLAN setting above), it  will  have  the
       name  dev.vlan-fcoe;  where dev is the name of the Ethernet parent device and vlan is the discovered VLAN
       ID number.

SEE ALSO

       fcoeadm(8) lldpad(8) lldptool(8) dcbtool(8)

SUPPORT

       fcoemon is part of the fcoe-utils package, maintained through the Open-FCoE project. Resources  for  both
       developers and users can be found at the Open-FCoE website http://open-fcoe.org/

Open-FCoE                                          09/30/2015                                         FCOEMON(8)