Configuration file

The BOFM configuration file is the central tool for managing the BOFM domain and contains the definitions that you need for a domain of up to 100 chassis. You can generate it automatically, save it, and edit it to conform to the needs of a specific domain and then apply it to the domain. You also have the option of creating your own configuration file.

The configuration file is a Comma Separated Value (CSV) file. Each non-blank and non-comment line defines a single entity within a domain. The entities currently defined are BladeCenters, Slots, and Port Entries, where a port is a single network device within a slot, which can have multiple definitions – one for each interface type.

The file is organized hierarchically by chassis, slots, and ports, with ample comment lines included to act as a guide to editing the file, if needed. It is best practice to maintain the original structure as much as possible in order to retain the readability of the file. For certain purposes it might be appropriate to extract a smaller section of the domain into a new file so that you can update a particular chassis or a particular blade individually.

To view a sample configuration file, see Sample configuration file.

Comments section

There are two types of comments: line comments and field comments.

// this is a line comment
localhost/# this is a field comment   	,bladecenter  	,apply

Line comments start with two slashes (//). The system ignores anything between this symbol and the end of the line. You can insert line comments anywhere in the file. However, inserting a comment inside a pair of quote marks results in a No closing quote error.

You can insert field comments in any field. Field comments start with a slash-hash (/#). The system ignores anything between this symbol and the end of the field. Inserting a field comment inside a pair of quotes does not cause an error.

Comments are included in the maximum line-length (currently 512 bytes including newlines). Very long comments should be broken over several lines to improve readability and to prevent exceeding the line-length limit. If you exceed the line-length limit, the system issues an error message.

BladeCenter section

//BladeCenterIP  			  ,Type,    		  ,Mode
  bladecenter2.ibm.com		,BladeCenter	  ,apply

The BladeCenter® section contains three parameters: the IP address of the BladeCenter, the entity Type (BladeCenter), and the Mode.

IP Address (required)

The IP Address can be any valid BladeCenter address in one of the following formats:

Advanced BOFM supports IPv4 dotted notation (for example, 192.168.0.1)
Basic BOFM supports IPv6 dotted notation (for example, 192.168.0.1)
Human-readable Internet addresses (for example, bladecenter2.ibm.com)
Note: Fully-qualified hostname is required for this format as indicated above (.ibm.com is required).

For larger sites, it is best practice to use human-readable addresses only if the domain-name-server (DNS) is on the local network. If the DNS is not local, the lookup time can slow the parsing substantially, especially if there is an error and the name is not found.

Type (required)

The type is BladeCenter. Any variation of upper and lowercase is acceptable.

Mode (required)

The mode is one of two options: apply or ignore. When ignore is selected, the system discards all slots and ports belonging to that BladeCenter. This allows an entire BladeCenter to be commented-out without the need to modify each individual line, and without regard for the ordering of the file.

The BladeCenter section should always come before slots belonging to it, and only one BladeCenter section can exist for a particular BladeCenter. If no BladeCenter section exists, when a slot is defined, the system uses a reasonable default definition for the BladeCenter. The default definition is based on the IP address of the slot and its mode is apply.

You can define up to 100 BladeCenters with their blades and ports in a single file.

Slot section

//BladeCenterIP  ,Type   ,Slot,  ,Mode    ,Profile	
  localhost		    ,slot	 ,1     ,enable   ,"TempProfile BC-1Slot-1"

The slot section represents a single slot within a BladeCenter. Its association to the BladeCenter is through the IP address of the BladeCenter. A slot entry is required before any port entries can be defined for that slot. Failure to define a slot before using it for a port results in an error. You can only define a slot once. Multiple definitions result in errors.

The slot section consists of five parameters: IP Address, Type, Slot, Mode, and Profile.

IP Address (required)

The IP Address can be any valid BladeCenter address in one of two formats: IPv4 or human-readable internet addresses. If you have not previously defined a BladeCenter with that address, the system defines one using reasonable defaults.

Type (required)

Always contains the value slot. Any combination of upper and lowercase is acceptable.

Slot (required)

Identifies the BladeCenter slot. This is a numeric value from 1 to 14. For a given type of BladeCenter the actual number of slots may be less than 14.

Mode (optional)

Can be one of three values:

Enable: The AMM pushes the BOFM configuration to the blade.
Disable: The AMM clears the BOFM configuration on the blade, so the blade goes to factory addresses.
Ignore: The BOFM configuration of this slot is unchanged by the configuration file.

The default value is disable.

Profile (optional)

A string value of up to 31 characters. You can use it to attach a human-friendly string to a particular blade. When you generate the configuration file, the system creates a value based on the cardinal position of the BladeCenter in the file and the slot number. You can edit this value, but make sure that you stay within the 31 character limit. If you exceed this limit, the system truncates the string and issues a warning. If no profile is given, the system creates one based on the IP address.

Port section

There are currently three types of port entries. The IP Address, Slot, and Type parameters are common to all port types.

IP Address (required)

The IP Address can be any valid BladeCenter address in one of two formats: IPv4 or human-readable internet addresses. If no BladeCenter has previously been defined with that address, the system issues an error message.

Slot (required)

Identifies the BladeCenter slot. This is a numeric value from 1 to 14. For a given type of BladeCenter the actual number of slots may be less than 14. You can only define a port for a slot that has already been defined with a slot entry (see Slot section). Attempting to define a port for an undefined slot results in an error.

Offset (optional)

A value between 0 and 3. For single-slot blades this value is 0. See Mapping of devices to ports and Multi-slot blades and the port offset parameter for more information.

Type (required)

The port type. Any combination of upper and lowercase is acceptable.

Eth: In addition to the four common parameters, the Ethernet port entry also contains the following parameters.

Port (required)

The port to which the data is written. This is a value between 1 and 8, where 1 and 2 are reserved for the built-in on-board Ethernet cards. See Mapping of devices to ports and Multi-slot blades and the port offset parameter for more information.

MAC1 (required)

The primary MAC address that is written to the Ethernet card attached to the port. It is a 48-bit EUI value represented in the field as six hexadecimal bytes (using values 0 - 9 and A - F, and not preceded by 0x) separated by colons, for example, 12:34:56:78:90:AB. Invalid addresses cause an error and the system ignores the line. Address 00:00:00:00:00:00 is a valid address, which will be used by the hardware in place of the burned-in address, but will not be shown as so in the Hardware VPD.

VLAN1 (optional)

The VLAN you use for this Ethernet connection. An empty field is equivalent to a value of zero, and the system informs the NIC that no VLAN was selected. Values are 0 - 4095. This field defaults to zero.
This VLAN tag is used only by the BIOS for the PXE boot. You must apply OS VLAN tags at the OS level.

MAC2 (optional)

The secondary MAC address for Ethernet cards that support this option. If you do not supply a value for this field it is not applied.

VLAN2 (optional)

The secondary VLAN that the system uses for those cards that support a secondary MAC address. This field is applied only if MAC2 and VLAN2 contain a supported value. Values are 0 - 4095. A value of zero is equivalent to an empty field.
This VLAN tag is used only by the BIOS for the PXE boot. You must apply OS VLAN tags at the OS level.

Following is an example of the Ethernet entry parameters:
```
//IP   		,Type  ,Slot  ,Offset ,Port  ,MAC_1             ,VLAN1 ,MAC_2 ,VLAN2
localhost  ,eth   ,1     ,0		  ,1     ,25:00:c9:00:00:00
```
Note: In the generated file Eth is expanded to Ethernet, but this is not required.
FC: In addition to the common parameters, the Fibre Channel port entry also contains the following parameters.

Port (required)

The port to which the data is written. This is a value between 3 and 8 (1 and 2 are reserved for the built-in on-board Ethernet cards). See Mapping of devices to ports and Multi-slot blades and the port offset parameter for more information.

WWNN (optional)

The worldwide node name for the Fibre Channel device attached to the port. It is a 64-bit EUI value represented in the field as eight hexadecimal bytes (using values 0 - 9 and A - F, and not preceded by 0x) separated by colons. Not all applications require this value, and some interface cards supply this value themselves by creating a number based on a transformation of the WWPN.

WWPN (required)

The worldwide port name for the Fibre Channel device attached to the port. It is a 64-bit EUI value represented in the field as eight hexadecimal bytes (using values 0 - 9 and A - F, and not preceded by 0x) separated by colons. Invalid addresses result in an error and the line is ignored.

Boot-order (optional)

The target the interface uses during the boot process. Values are none, first, second, or both. If the value is first, second, or both, the boot process tries to use the equivalent target to boot the blade (targets can have a priority of first or second). This parameter defaults to none.

Following is an example of the Fibre Channel entry parameters:
```
//IP	     ,Type  ,Slot  ,Offset ,Port  ,WWNN                   ,WWPN														,Boot-order
localhost ,fc   ,1     ,0 			,3    ,2f:fc:00:00:c9:00:00:00, 2f:fc:00:00:c9:00:00:00  ,none
```
FCTarget: In addition to the common parameters, the Fibre Channel Target port entry also contains the following parameters.

Priority (required)

The value of this parameter can be first or second. first denotes the primary target for the blade and second denotes the secondary target.

WWPN (required)

The worldwide port name of the target. It is a 64-bit EUI value represented in the field as eight hexadecimal bytes (using values 0 - 9 and A - F, and not preceded by 0x) separated by colons. Invalid addresses result in an error and the line is ignored.

LUN (required)

The LUN of the target. For numbers less than four bytes long this can be specified as a decimal or hexadecimal number, where hexadecimal numbers are preceded by 0x. For longer numbers, you must use the standard EUI notation (eight pairs of hexadecimal characters, divided by colons).

Following is an example of the Fibre Channel Target entry parameters:

//IP       ,Type 	    ,Slot  ,Priority  ,WWPN                      ,LUN
localhost  ,fctarget  ,1     ,first     ,ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff   ,0

SAS: In addition to the common parameters, the SAS port entry also contains the following parameters.

Port (required)

The port to which the data is written. This is a value between 3 and 8 (1 and 2 are reserved for the built-in on-board Ethernet cards). See Mapping of devices to ports and Multi-slot blades and the port offset parameter for more information.

WWPN (required)

The worldwide port name for the SAS device attached to the port. It is a 64-bit EUI value represented in the field as eight hexadecimal bytes (using values 0 - 9 and A - F, and not preceded by 0x) separated by colons. Invalid addresses result in an error and the line is ignored.

Boot-order (optional)

The target the interface uses during the boot process. Values are none, first, second, or both. If the value is first, second, or both, the boot process tries to use the equivalent target to boot the blade (targets can have a priority of first or second). This parameter defaults to none.

Following is an example of the Fibre Channel entry parameters:
```
//IP	     ,Type  ,Slot  ,Offset ,Port  ,WWPN,                   ,Boot-order
localhost ,sas   ,1     ,0 			,3    ,50:05:07:60:1a:80:00:02  ,none
```
SASTarget: In addition to the common parameters, the SAS Target port entry also contains the following parameters.

Priority (required)

The value of this parameter can be first or second. first denotes the primary target for the blade and second denotes the secondary target.

WWPN (required)

The worldwide port name of the target. It is a 64-bit EUI value represented in the field as eight hexadecimal bytes (using values 0 - 9 and A - F, and not preceded by 0x) separated by colons. Invalid addresses result in an error and the line is ignored.

LUN (required)

The LUN of the target. For numbers less than four bytes long this can be specified as a decimal or hexadecimal number, where hexadecimal numbers are preceded by 0x. For longer numbers, you must use the standard EUI notation (eight pairs of hexadecimal characters, divided by colons).

Following is an example of the Fibre Channel Target entry parameters:

//IP       ,Type 	    ,Slot  ,Priority  ,WWN                      ,LUN
localhost  ,sastarget  ,1     ,first     ,11:11:11:11:11:11:11:11  ,0

Virtual: In addition to the common parameters, the virutal port entry also contains the following parameters.

Port (required)

The physical port to which the data is written. This is either 5 or 7. See Mapping of devices to ports and Multi-slot blades and the port offset parameter for more information.

vPort (required)

The virtual port number. This is a value between 1 and 8. See Mapping of devices to ports and Multi-slot blades and the port offset parameter for more information.

minBand (required)

The minimum bandwidth associated with each virtual port. If value is set 0, then the port is disabled. Total minimum bandwidth for a physical port must be 100. Minimum bandwidth must be smaller than maximum bandwidth.

maxBand (required)

The maximum bandwidth associated with each virtual port. If minimum bandwidth is 0, then maximum bandwidth must be 0, as well. Maximum bandwidth must be greater than or equal to minimum bandwidth.

VLAN (optional)

The VLAN you use for this virtual Ethernet connection. An empty field is equivalent to a value of zero, and the system informs the NIC that no VLAN was selected. Values are 0 - 4095. This field defaults to zero.
This VLAN tag is used only by the BIOS for the PXE boot. You must apply OS VLAN tags at the OS level.

Following is an example of the virtual port entry parameters:
```
//IP	     ,Type  ,Slot  ,Offset ,Port  ,vPort 	,MAC            ,minBand			,maxBand 		,Priority   ,vlan
localhost ,virtual   ,1     ,0 			,5    ,1		,00:1a:64:76:00:08  ,25 				,25					,1						,0
```

Other format features of the configuration file

The configuration file also contains the following characteristics and requirements:

Case: Characters in the configuration file are not case sensitive.
Whitespace: The file is largely whitespace agnostic. Whitespace is stripped before the fields are parsed. To make editing easier for you when you choose not to edit in a spreadsheet program, whitespace is added to the end of fields in the generated files. This whitespace is entirely optional and you can remove it.
Newlines: The file supports spreadsheets that use the UNIX line-feed only convention (OpenOffice Calc) and the DOS carriage-return/line-feed convention (Excel). It also supports line-feed only and carriage-return/line-feed text editors.
Line-length: The maximum line length is 512 characters. This is the absolute length of the line. It includes comments, whitespace carriage-returns, line feeds and other hidden characters. Exceeding this length results in a line error and the line is discarded.