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OnCommand Unified Manager 9.5
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What LIFs are

Contributors netapp-adityaw
PDFs

A LIF (logical interface) is an IP address or WWPN with associated characteristics, such as a role, a home port, a home node, a list of ports to fail over to, and a firewall policy. You can configure LIFs on ports over which the cluster sends and receives communications over the network.

LIFs can be hosted on the following ports:

  • Physical ports that are not part of interface groups

  • Interface groups

  • VLANs

  • Physical ports or interface groups that host VLANs

  • Virtual IP (VIP) ports

    Starting with ONTAP 9.5, VIP LIFs are supported and are hosted on VIP ports.

While configuring SAN protocols such as FC on a LIF, it will be associated with a WWPN.

ONTAP 9 SAN Administration Guide

The following figure illustrates the port hierarchy in an ONTAP system:

image illustrating the port hierarchy in a clustered Data ONTAP system