Locating a WWPN on a Brocade SAN fabric

Mar 29, 2022 · 2 min read ·

Determining which switch port a WWPN is connected to is easy on a Brocade fabric when there is only one switch. Using the nodefind CLI command you can run "nodefind WWPN" and it will tell you which port index the WWPN is located on. In this example, line 2 of the nodefind output shows the node is located locally on the switch you ran the command from.

 1switch:user> nodefind 20:00:00:e0:8b:01:ce:d3
 2Local:
 3    Type   Pid      COS   PortName                NodeName
 4    NL     430eef;  3;20:00:00:e0:8b:01:ce:d3;20:00:00:e0:8b:01:ce:d3;
 5          Fabric Port Name: 20:0e:00:60:69:51:0b:ba
 6          Permanent Port Name: 20:00:00:e0:8b:01:ce:d3
 7          Device type: Physical Target
 8          Port Index: 14
 9          Share Area: No
10          Device Shared in Other AD: No
11          Aliases:

Things get a little more complicated when you have multiple switches in a fabric. The nodefind command doesn't tell you in an obvious way which switch the WWPN is on. It does tell you whether the node is local or remote and information you can use to locate it.

In the below example, look at line 4 of the nodefind output. Under the Pid section it shows "430eef". Keep note of the first two characters (43) and then run the "fabricshow" command.

 1switch:user> nodefind 20:00:00:e0:8b:01:ce:d3
 2Remote:
 3    Type   Pid      COS   PortName                NodeName
 4    NL     430eef;  3;20:00:00:e0:8b:01:ce:d3;20:00:00:e0:8b:01:ce:d3;
 5          Fabric Port Name: 20:0e:00:60:69:51:0b:ba
 6          Permanent Port Name: 20:00:00:e0:8b:01:ce:d3
 7          Device type: Physical Target
 8          Port Index: 14
 9          Share Area: No
10          Device Shared in Other AD: No
11          Aliases:
12
13switch:admin> fabricshow
14Switch ID  Worldwide Name          Enet IP Addr  FC IP Addr Name
15----------------------------------------------------------------------
1664: fffc40 10:00:00:60:69:00:06:56 192.168.64.50 0.0.0.0    "SWA1"
1765: fffc41 10:00:00:60:69:00:02:0b 192.168.64.51 0.0.0.0    "SWA2"
1866: fffc42 10:00:00:60:69:00:05:91 192.168.64.52 0.0.0.0    "SWA3"
1967: fffc43 10:00:00:60:69:10:60:1f 192.168.64.53 0.0.0.0    "SWA4"
20
21The Fabric has 4 switches
22Fabric Name: Fabric_A

If you look at the fabricshow output (line 19) you will see "67: fffc43" under Switch ID. The last two characters are what's important here (43). Look familiar? This is the domain ID of the switch and you can use this along with the nodefind output to determine where the WWPN is located.

In this case the WWPN 20:00:00:e0:8b:01:ce:d3 is located on port index 14 on the switch SWA4.