Configuring host objects

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You can configure Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), NVMe over Fibre Channel, NVMe over RDMA, and Ethernet iSCSI-attached hosts to a system.

If you are configuring a host object on a Fibre Channel fabric-attached host, ensure that you complete all zone and switch configuration. If you are configuring a directly attached Fibre Channel host, there must be connections to both nodes in each I/O group that has volumes that are mapped to that host. Also, test the configuration to ensure that zoning was created correctly.

If you are configuring a host object on the system that uses iSCSI connections, ensure that you complete the necessary host-system configurations and configure the system for iSCSI connections.

If you are configuring a host, such as hosts that are running the VMware operating system, define each host in the system as a separate host object. Do not combine multiple worldwide port names (WWPNs) from multiple hosts as one host object.

If you are configuring a host to a portset, portset object is created first, and then the Fibre Channel port or IP address object, and then the host object is created and configured with a portset. A portset restricts a host to access only a specific set of logical addresses of a node. A host object can be configured to a single portset at a time. However, multiple host objects can be mapped to the same portset. There are two default portsets based on the portset type. Portset 0 is used for Ethernet portsets and portset 64 is the default portset for Fibre Channel portsets. If a host is not assigned to a portset, the host is added to the correct default portset based on the connection type of the host. The lsportset command shows the number of hosts count associated with the available portsets. For more information on portsets, refer to Portsets.

To create host objects in the management GUI, select Hosts > Hosts > Add Host.

To create host objects by using the CLI, see the information about configuring host objects by using the CLI. To delete an existing host object, use the rmhost command.

Host portsets configuration using CLI commands

To add a portset to a new host, complete the following steps:

To verify the portset type and port type, enter the following command:
```
lsportset
```
In the result, verify that the type is host and port_type is ethernet or fc. You can assign a portset with the same type to host. The portset type must match the port type for mapping ports to portsets.
To assign a new host to a portset, enter the following command:
Note: This example is using the -iscsiname parameter. For full information about the mkhost command and parameter options, see mkhost.
```
mkhost -iscsiname iqn.localhost.hostid.7f000001 -name host_name -portset portset_id | portset_name
```
In the result, porset_id with 0 value is the default ID for Ethernet port, and the porset_id with 64 is the default ID for Fibre Channel port.
To change the portset of an existing host object, enter the following command:
```
chhost -portset portset_id | portset_name host_name | host_id
```
where host_name | host_id specifies the host object to modify, either by ID or name.

Host cluster configuration CLI commands

The mkhostcluster CLI command is used to configure a host cluster. You can specify one or more hosts from which to create the initial shared volume mappings of the host cluster. You can also create an "empty" host cluster that does not contain any volume mappings and add hosts to it later. The traditional methods of managing mappings between a volume and a host by using the mkvdiskhostmap and rmvdiskhostmap commands do not work on shared mappings.

When you specify one or more hosts on the mkhostcluster command, the process is called seeding. A new host cluster is created and the hosts that you specified are added to the host cluster. By default, all of the private volume mappings for the hosts become the shared mappings of the host cluster. However, you can also exclude specific volumes from being shared. The private volume mappings are not shared with any other host in the host cluster.

To add a host to a host cluster, enter the addhostclustermember command. When added, the new host shares the volume mappings of the hosts that are specified on the mkhostcluster command. If no SCSI LUN conflicts are detected, the volume mappings on the new host are also shared with other hosts in the host cluster. However, the mkhostcluster command failed SCSI LUN conflicts are detected between the shared mappings in the host cluster and the private mappings of the host.

To display all of the hosts that are members of a specific host cluster, enter the lshostclustermember command. A host can be a member of only one host cluster

When you remove a host from a host cluster, you can keep or remove any volume mappings that were obtained when it was part of the host cluster. If you keep the volume mappings, the volumes become private mappings of the host. If you remove the volume mappings, the host does not maintain any of the shared volume mappings from the host cluster. For more information, see the rmhostclustermember command.