Hi guys.
switchshow will show you the 'switchrole' of the logged on switch.
fabricshow will show you the switches within your fabric and show you the Principal switch. (the one with a >)
Technically, the Principal switch is the first one booted up within the fabric. I also thought (i must have read this somewhere), that the lowest WWN was the winner in the election of a Principal switch...not the Domain ID??
Here is how to deal with it, taken from the Brocade book...(don't know if it is your hardware though...is it the same command for Mcdata? Cisco?)
Synopsis fabricprincipal [-fhq][ mode ]
Description Use this command to set principal switch selection mode for the switch. The implementation of the fabricPrincipal command is based solely on mechanisms specified in the Fibre Channel standards. These mechanisms provide a preference for a switch requesting to be the principal switch in a fabric, but they do not provide an absolute guarantee that a switch requesting to be the principal switch will actually achieve this status. When dealing with larger fabrics, the selection of the principal switch is less deterministic. In these cases, to help ensure that the desired switch is selected as the principal switch, a small selection of switches should be connected together first, followed by the addition of the rest of the fabric.
Operands This command has the following operands:
-f Specify the -f option to force a fabric rebuild. This option is required when enabling principal switch mode. This option is not valid with the disabling principal switch mode.
-h Specify the -h option to display command usage summary.
-q Specify the -q option to display the current mode state.
mode Specify 1 to enable, or 0 to disable principal switch mode (the mode activates when the fabric rebuilds). This operand is optional.
To display the current mode settings: fabricprincipal -q
To disable the mode setting: fabricprincipal 0
To enable the mode setting: fabricprincipal 1
To enable and force a fabric rebuild: fabricprincipal -f 1
Steph
(hehehe. Looks like heada got to it 1st...!
)