Understanding filer network interfaces

Types of interfaces the filer supports

The filer supports the following interface types:

Ethernet and quad-port Ethernet
Gigabit Ethernet
Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI)
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)--Emulated LAN and FORE/IP

The filer also supports the following virtual network interface types:

virtual interface (vif)
virtual LAN (VLAN)
virtual hosting (vh)

Data ONTAP imposes a limit of 128 network interfaces (including physical, vifs, VLAN, vh, and loopback interfaces) per filer.

How interfaces are named

For physical interfaces, the interface names are assigned automatically based on the slot in which the network adapter is installed.

VLAN interfaces are displayed in the interfaceID_and_slot_number-vlan_id format, where slot_number is the slot in which the network adapter is installed and vlan_id is the identifier of the VLAN configured on the interface. For example, e8-2, e8-3, and e8-4 are three VLAN interfaces for VLANs 2, 3, and 4, configured on interface e8.

You can assign names for vifs and the emulated LAN interfaces.

You can use the ifconfig command or FilerView to display network interfaces on your filer. For more information, see Configuring network interfaces.

How multiple ports are identified

Some Ethernet adapters support four ports. These adapters are referred to as quad-port interfaces. Data ONTAP uses a letter to refer to each port on a quad-port interface. The following table shows the relationship of port numbers to letters.

Port number	Letter
1	a
2	b
3	c
4	d

Interface naming conventions

The following table lists interface types, their identifiers, and examples of names that use the identifiers.

Interface type	Interface type ID	Examples of names
Ethernet (single) and Gigabit Ethernet	e	e0 e1
Ethernet (quad-port)	e	e0a e0b e0c e0d e1a e1b
vifs	Any user-specified string.	web_vif proxy_vif
VLAN	e	e8-2 e8-3
FDDI	f	f0 f1
ATM	a (used only to configure clusters)	a0 a1
ATM--Emulated LAN	el (default)	el0
ATM--Fore IP	fa	fa0

How Data ONTAP creates host names

The first time you run the setup program on a filer, Data ONTAP creates a host name for each installed interface by appending the interface name to the host name of the filer.

Examples of host names

Example 1

A filer named toaster with a single Ethernet interface in slot 0 and a quad-port Ethernet interface in slot 1 has the host names given in the following table.

Interface	Host name
Single-port Ethernet interface in slot 0	toaster-e0
Quad-port Ethernet interface in slot 1	toaster-e1a toaster-e1b toaster-e1c toaster-e1d

Example 2

A filer named toaster with an FDDI interface in slot 1 has the host name toaster-f1.