Xapi Project

FCoE capable NICs

Design document
Revision v3
Status proposed
Review #120

It has been possible to identify the NICs of a Host which can support FCoE. This property can be listed in PIF object under capabilities field.

Introduction

  • FCoE supported on a NIC is a hardware property. With the help of dcbtool, we can identify which NIC support FCoE.
  • The new field capabilities will be Set(String) in PIF object. For FCoE capable NIC will have string “fcoe” in PIF capabilities field.
  • capabilities field will be ReadOnly, This field cannot be modified by user.

PIF Object

New field:

  • Field PIF.capabilities will be type Set(string).
  • Default value in PIF capabilities will have an empty set.

Xapi Changes

  • Set the field capabilities “fcoe” depending on output of xcp-networkd call get_capabilities.
  • Field capabilities “fcoe” can be set during introduce_internal on when creating a PIF.
  • Field capabilities “fcoe” can be updated during refresh_all on xapi startup.
  • The above field will be set everytime when xapi-restart.

XCP-Networkd Changes

New function:

  • String list string list get_capabilties (string)
  • Argument: device_name for the PIF.
  • This function calls method capable exposed by fcoe_driver.py as part of dom0.
  • It returns string list [“fcoe”] or [] depending on capable method output.

Defaults, Installation and Upgrade

  • Any newly introduced PIF will have its capabilities field as empty set until fcoe_driver method capable states FCoE is supported on the NIC.
  • It includes PIFs obtained after a fresh install of Xenserver, as well as PIFs created using PIF.introduce then PIF.scan.
  • During an upgrade Xapi Restart will call refresh_all which then populate the capabilities field as empty set.

Command Line Interface

  • The PIF.capabilities field is exposed through xe pif-list and xe pif-param-list as usual.