Host portsets

Portsets are groupings of logical addresses that are associated with the specific traffic types.

A host object can be configured to a single portset at a time. However, multiple host objects can be mapped to the same portset. A Host Cluster can consist of hosts that are configured to different portsets. However, it is not possible to view portset information by using a CLI command if the hosts in a cluster are configured to different portsets. You can configure a host to a specific portset by using the mkhost command. The chhost command can be used to change portset assignment to a host. The host loses its connectivity for all the applications until a new portset is assigned and contains an overlapping port with old portset.

Requirements for host portsets

In addition to portset 0, you can create more portsets for host traffic. These requirements are specific to host portsets:
  • Portsets can have a maximum of 4 IP addresses per node.
  • A single portset can either contain IPv4 or IPv6 or a mix of IPv4 and IPv6 addresses.
  • For a host to log in to nodes on the system, the host must be mapped to a portset that contains at least one IP address from any of nodes on that system.

Requirements for Ethernet portsets

In general, Ethernet portsets have the following requirements:
Ethernet Portsets
  • An Ethernet portset must contain at least one IP address before it can be mapped to a host.
  • Each IP address in a portset must be configured on a separate Ethernet port.
  • Same ports can share IP addresses across different portsets that allow the same IP address to be used for host, storage, and replication traffic. All shared IP addresses must use the same port and have the same VLAN, gateway, and prefix. When IP addresses are shared among multiple portsets, the system creates a logical copy of the IP address and its attributes, rather than a new IP address.
  • Portsets that are owned by different ownership groups can share an IP address.
  • The Port Type field value defines whether the portset is Ethernet. If you are using the command-line interface, specify ethernet in the port_type parameter of the mkportset command.
  • Each port can be configured with only one unique routable IP address (gateway specified). The routable IP can be shared among multiple portsets.
  • Portset 0 is a default portset that is automatically configured when the system is updated or created. Portset 0 is a host portset by default and cannot be deleted even if it is empty. Portset 0 serves as the default portset for any IP addresses and host objects that are configured without a portset specified. Portset 0 allows administrators to continue with an original configuration that does not require multi-tenancy. After an update, all configured Ethernet-based host objects are automatically mapped to portset 0.

Requirements for Fibre Channel portsets

The Fibre Channel portsets have the following requirements:
  • A Fibre Channel portset must contain at least one Fibre Channel port before it can be mapped to a host.
  • Many host objects can be mapped to a single Fibre Channel portset.
  • If you do not map a host object to a portset, the host object is automatically mapped to the default portset to ensure operational continuity. The default portset for Fibre Channel portsets is portset64. You can create extra portsets based on the configurations and workload.
    Note: A new FC-NVMe host can be mapped to a user-defined Fibre Channel portset only.
  • Host objects can access volumes only through the Fibre Channel ports that are associated with the respective portset.
  • The Port Type field value defines whether the portset is Fibre Channel. If you are using the command-line interface, specify fc in the port_type parameter of the mkportset command.
  • The Fibre Channel I/O ports are added to the portset by using Fibre Channel I/O port ID. It is applicable for all the nodes in the system.
  • A Fibre Channel port can be associated with more than one portset.

A portset restricts a host to access only a specific set of IP addresses of a node. A host can access only those IP addresses that are configured on a portset and is mapped to that host. A portset object is a system-wide object and might contains IP addresses from every I/O group. To access multiple nodes in a system, a portset must be configured with the IP address of the nodes that the host wants to access.