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/