Managing hosts

You can use several tools to manage hosts, including the management GUI, the command-line interface (CLI), and specialized utilities for working with host bus adapters. To work with hosts in the management GUI, select Hosts.

Configuring host objects

You can configure Fibre Channel, NVMe over Fibre Channel, NVMe over RDMA, NVMe over TCP, 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.

Note: A new FC-NVMe host can be mapped to a user-defined Fibre Channel portset only. Pre-existing FC-NVMe host objects which are part of the default Fibre Channel portset must be moved from the default portset to user-defined Fibre Channel portset.

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.

Note: Portset selection is mandatory for FC-NVMe hosts creation. You must select a non-default portset while creating FC-NVMe hosts.

To edit host objects in the management GUI, go to Hosts > Hosts. Open the action prompt of the host to edit or right click on the host to edit and select Edit and rename host.

Note: For an FC-NVMe host, the default portset portset64 is a view only option and cannot be used. For an FC-NVMe host, You can change the portset type to user-defined portset only.

To create host objects by using the CLI, use the mkhost command. To add ports to an existing host object, use the addhostport command. To delete an existing host object, use the rmhost command.