Abstract:
A fabric driver on a host system connected to a fabric may include an API for an administration application to query and obtain a list of devices connected to a fabric host adapter port(s). The fabric driver may execute this query and obtain the list of devices by querying a fabric name server. One or more direct attach devices may also be discovered. For direct attach devices, like private loop topologies, operating system device nodes may be created during driver attach. However, for fabric topologies the fabric driver provides a list of devices visible through the fabric host adapter port by querying the fabric name server and supplies this list to the administration application in response to the administration application's request. A user may then select devices from this list to be onlined. A dynamic persistent repository may be maintained of devices onlined using this on-demand node creation process.