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20-20
Cisco MDS 9000 Family Fabric Manager Configuration Guide
OL-17256-03, Cisco MDS NX-OS Release 4.x
Chapter 20 Configuring Interfaces
Fibre Channel Interfaces
The speed LED displays the speed of the port interface:
• Off—The interface attached to that port is functioning at 1000 Mbps.
• On (solid green)—The interface attached to that port is functioning at 2000 Mbps (for 2 Gbps
interfaces).
The speed LED also displays if the beacon mode is enabled or disabled:
• Off or solid green—Beacon mode is disabled.
• Flashing green—The beacon mode is enabled. The LED flashes at one-second intervals.
Note Generation 2 and Generation 3 modules and Frabic Switches do not have speed LEDs.
About Beacon Mode
By default, the beacon mode is disabled on all switches. The beacon mode is indicated by a flashing
green light that helps you identify the physical location of the specified interface.
Configuring the beacon mode has no effect on the operation of the interface.
Configuring Beacon Mode
To enable beacon mode for a specified interface or range of interfaces using Fabric Manager, follow
these steps:
Step 1 Expand Switches > Interfaces and then select Gigabit Ethernet.
You see the interface configuration in the Information pane.
Step 2 Enable the Beacon Mode option for the selected switch.
Step 3 Click Apply Changes.
Note The flashing green light turns on automatically when an external loopback is detected that causes the
interfaces to be isolated. The flashing green light overrides the beacon mode configuration. The state of
the LED is restored to reflect the beacon mode configuration after the external loopback is removed.
About Bit Error Thresholds
The bit error rate threshold is used by the switch to detect an increased error rate before performance
degradation seriously affects traffic.
The bit errors can occur for the following reasons:
• Faulty or bad cable.
• Faulty or bad GBIC or SFP.
• GBIC or SFP is specified to operate at 1 Gbps but is used at 2 Gbps.