Network Working Group R. Weber
Request for Comments: 3643 Brocade
Category: Standards Track M. Rajagopal
Broadcom Corporation
F. Travostino
Nortel Networks
M. O'Donnell
McDATA
C. Monia
Nishan Systems
M. Merhar
Sun Microsystems
December 2003
Fibre Channel (FC) Frame Encapsulation
Status of this Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This document describes the common Fibre Channel (FC) frame
encapsulation format and a procedure for the measurement and
calculation of frame transit time through the IP network. This
specification is intended for use by any IETF protocol that
encapsulates FC frames.
Weber, et al. Standards Track [Page 1]
RFC 3643 FC Frame Encapsulation December 2003
Table Of Contents
1. Scope. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Encapsulation Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. The FC Encapsulation Header. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.1. FC Encapsulation Header Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.2. FC Encapsulation Header Validation . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.2.1. Redundancy Based FC Encapsulation
Header Validation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.2.2. CRC Based FC Encapsulation Header Validation . . 7
4. Measuring Fibre Channel Frame Transit Time . . . . . . . . . . 8
5. The FC Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.1. FC Frame Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.2. Bit and Byte Ordering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.3. FC SOF and EOF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6. Security Considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
7.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
7.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
8. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Appendix
A Fibre Channel Bit and Byte Numbering Guidance . . . . . . . . . 15
B Encapsulating Protocol Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
C IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
D Intellectual Property Rights Statement. . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Full Copyright Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1. Scope
This document describes common mechanisms for the transport of Fibre
Channel frames over an IP network, including the encapsulation format
and a mechanism for enforcing the Fibre Channel frame lifetime
limits.
Warning to Readers Familiar With Fibre Channel: Both Fibre Channel
and IETF standards use the same byte transmission order. However, the
bit and byte numbering is different. See Appendix A for guidance.
The organization responsible for the Fibre Channel standards (INCITS
Technical Committee T11) has determined that some functions and modes
of operation are not interoperable to the degree required by the IETF
(see FC-MI [8]). This document includes applicable T11
interoperability determinations in the form of restrictions on the
use of this encapsulation mechanism.
Weber, et al. Standards Track [Page 2]
RFC 3643 FC Frame Encapsulation December 2003
Use of these mechanisms in an encapsulating protocol requires an
additional document to specify the encapsulating protocol specific
datatracker.ietf.org