820 Configuring Data Center Bridging Features
Ports operating in the manual role do not have their configuration affected by 
peer devices or by internal propagation of configuration. These ports have 
their operational mode, traffic classes, and bandwidth information specified 
explicitly by the operator. These ports advertise their configuration to their 
peer if DCBx is enabled on that port. Incompatible peer configurations are 
logged and counted with an error counter.
The default operating mode for each port is manual. A port that is set to 
manual mode sets the willing bit for DCBx client TLVs to false. Manually- 
configured ports never internally propagate or accept internal or external 
configuration from other ports; in other words, a manual configuration 
discards any automatic configuration. Manually-configured ports may notify 
the operator of incompatible configurations if client configuration exchange 
over DCBx is enabled. Manually configured ports are always operationally 
enabled for DCBx clients, regardless of whether DCBx is enabled. 
Operationally enabled means that the port reports that it is able to operate 
using the current configuration.
A port operating in the auto-upstream role advertises a configuration, but is 
also willing to accept a configuration from the link-partner and propagate it 
internally to the auto-downstream ports, as well as receive configuration 
propagated internally by other auto-upstream ports. Specifically, the willing 
parameter is enabled on the port and the recommendation TLV is sent to the 
peer and processed if received locally. The first auto-upstream port to 
successfully accept a compatible configuration becomes the configuration 
source. The configuration source propagates its configuration to other auto-
upstream and auto-downstream ports. Only the configuration source may 
propagate configuration to other ports internally. Auto-upstream ports that 
receive internally propagated information ignore their local configuration and 
utilize the internally propagated information.
Peer configurations received on auto-upstream ports other than the 
configuration source result in one of two possibilities. If the configuration is 
compatible with the configuration source, then the DCBx client becomes 
operationally active on the upstream port. If the configuration is not 
compatible with the configuration source, then a message is logged indicating 
an incompatible configuration, an error counter is incremented, and the 
DCBx client is operationally disabled on the port. The expectation is that the 
network administrator configures the upstream devices appropriately so that 
all such devices advertise a compatible configuration.