User Manual

Rev 2.2-1.0.1

Mellanox Technologies

Each vHub belongs to a specific gateway (BridgeX® + eport), and each gateway has one default

vHub, and zero or more VLAN-associated vHubs. A specific gateway can have multiple vHubs

distinguishable by their unique VLAN ID. Traffic coming from the Ethernet side on a specific

eport will be routed to the relevant vHub group based on its VLAN tag (or to the default vHub for

that GW if no vLan ID is present).

4.3.1.3 Virtual NIC (vNic)

A virtual NIC is a network interface instance on the host side which belongs to a single vHub on

a specific GW

. The vNic behaves similar to any regular hardware network interface. The host can

have multiple interfaces that belong to the same vHub.

4.3.2 EoIB Configuration

mlx4_vnic module supports two different modes of configuration which is passed to the host

mlx4_vnic driver using the EoIB protocol:

• host administration where the vNic is configured on the host side

• network administration where the configuration is done by the BridgeX

Both modes of operation require the presence of a BridgeX gateway in order to work properly.

The EoIB driver supports a mixture of host and network administered vNics.

4.3.2.1 EoIB Host Administered vNic

In the host administered mode, vNics are configured using static configuration files located on

the host side.

These configuration files define the number of vNics, and the vHub that each host

administered vNic will belong to (i.e., the vNic's BridgeX box, eport and VLAN id properties).

The mlx4_vnic_confd service is used to read these configuration files and pass the relevant data

to the mlx4_vnic module. EoIB Host Administered vNic supports two forms of configuration

files:

• “Central Configuration File - /etc/infiniband/mlx4_vnic.conf”

• “vNic Specific Configuration Files - ifcfg-ethX”

Both forms of configuration supply the same functionality. If both forms of configuration files

exist, the central configuration file has precedence and only this file will be used.

Central Configuration File - /etc/infiniband/mlx4_vnic.conf

The mlx4_vnic.conf file consists of lines, each describing one vNic. The following file format is

used:

name=eth47 mac=00:25:8B:27:16:84 ib_port=mlx4_0:1 vid=2 vnic_id=7 bx=BX001 eport=A11

The fields used in the file have the following meaning:

Table 3 - mlx4_vnic.conf file format

Field Description

name The name of the interface that is displayed when running ifconfig.

mac The mac address to assign to the vNic.