Patent ID: 8218571

Claim:
A system, comprising: at least one Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) N_Port; an Ethernet fabric; and an FCoE switch, said at least one FCoE N_Ports communicatively coupled to said FCoE switch through said Ethernet fabric; and a processing device coupled to said at least one FCoE N_Ports operable to determine receipt of a frame, extract information associated with said Ethernet fabric, extract fields within said information associated with said Ethernet fabric to at least one additional FCoE N_Port frame header; and determine a configuration of said Ethernet fabric from said extracted information wherein said information associated with said Ethernet fabric data field comprises: an indication of whether an Ethernet fabric presence between said FCoE switch and said FCoE N_Port; control bits within a frame header of said frame, said control bits operable to indicate that an optional Ethernet frame header is present in said data field of said frame, wherein said Ethernet frame header comprises: an Enet flag field; an Enet Switch Count field; an Enet Switch IP Address List Data Length field; and an Enet Switch IP Address List field; said at least one FCoE N_Ports is further operable to: determine that a first flag in said Enet flag field indicates valid information present in said Enet flag field and said Enet Switch Count field; determine that a second flag in said Enet flag field indicates: an Ethernet fabric is directly attached to said at least one FCoE N_Ports; and said Enet Switch Count field comprises a number of Ethernet Switches in said direct-attached Ethernet fabric; determine that a third flag in said Enet flag field indicates: a list of IP addresses for each of Ethernet Switches; and determine a configuration of said direct-attached Ethernet fabric based on: a count of a number Ethernet Switches in said FCoE fabric when said Ethernet fabric is present; and a list of IP addresses for each of Ethernet Switches, a presence of said Ethernet fabrics attached to said at least one FCoE N_Port; and a configuration of said Ethernet fabrics attached to said at least one FCoE N_Port.