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I've got IP over FC working, and have the HBA (QLogic QLA2340) connected to a router with a DHCP server on it. However, whenever I do a:

ifconfig fcip0 dhcp start

I get:

ifconfig: fcip0 wait timed out, operation still pending...

The wiring setup is:

HBA -> LC-SC cable -> StarTech ET90110SC -> Router

Is there anything obviously wrong with this setup that could cause it to fail? I've got the cable crossed over (Machine 1 RX -> Router TX), and the activity lights are blinking.

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    You need to look at your DHCP server's logs to see if the request is getting to it at all. We discussed this situation the other day didn't we, I did say this can work but isn't a smart idea - one reason is that right now you can't just mirror a port and use wireshark.
    – Chopper3
    Aug 23, 2011 at 7:21

3 Answers 3

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That setup will not work, the HBA is fiber-channel protocol based and the Startech converter is Ethernet protocol based.

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  • But the is is 'IP over FC', which DOES work just fine, however rare and possibly ill-advised.
    – Chopper3
    Aug 23, 2011 at 7:19
  • I wasn't aware an FC HBA could even negotiate link with an Ethernet port, except for modern FCoE capable HBA's of course.
    – HampusLi
    Aug 23, 2011 at 7:53
  • Who said anything about ethernet? this is IP over FC, there's no ethernet involved - but yes you can do FCIP too over ethernet if you wish. Don't forget these things work at different layers so can change what's above and below them.
    – Chopper3
    Aug 23, 2011 at 7:56
  • The StarTech ET90110SC device mentioned in the question is a 100base-FX to 100base-TX ethernet converter.
    – HampusLi
    Aug 23, 2011 at 7:57
  • Oh I see, I didn't realise he was being THAT daft - wow
    – Chopper3
    Aug 23, 2011 at 8:12
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Eli - wind my comment up there back, I didn't realise you were coming at this with such little understanding. I don't mean to be harsh but you're way off base here.

In your first question about this subject you stated that you didn't have any ethernet hardware - meaning you wanted to do this work FULLY FC-to-FC. What you've got here is a huge mess you've created. While you can run IP on almost any layer 2 device (ethernet, token-ring, PPoA, FC) what you're trying to do is just plug FC into an ethernet switch - this can't work on its own - you'd need to connect that into some form of (very expensive) converter such as a FCIP-capable switch or an ethernet capable FC switch. They're wildly incompatible protocols by default. You need to give up on this right now and just buy an ethernet NIC.

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  • Thing is, I have all this FC hardware laying around. I could just have a dedicated GigE->Fibre machine running a DHCP forwarder. (I got the fibre hardware for a total of less than the cost of of a 100ft Cat-5 cable, which is really cheap)
    – Eli
    Aug 23, 2011 at 15:50
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    Seriously, forget about it, you'll spend the rest of your career up this blind-alley.
    – Chopper3
    Aug 23, 2011 at 16:25
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    +1 -- "Do Not Attempt Exotic Configurations In Production Environments. The shit will hit the fan right over your desk." - Ancient Proverb.
    – voretaq7
    Aug 23, 2011 at 16:32
  • It's not a production environment. This is just stuff I have laying around and wanted to put to use.
    – Eli
    Aug 23, 2011 at 16:39
  • perhaps you want 'massivewasteoftimefault.com' instead, this site's for professional sysadmins, superuser.com is there for fiddling about in your shed.
    – Chopper3
    Aug 23, 2011 at 16:47
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Is the router the DHCP Server ? If not you need to tell your router that he has to forward DHCP Request Broadcasts. In Cisco IOS this is done via the ip helper command.

Whoops, HampusLi is right, didnt realized that you are talking about FC.

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