User Manual

Configuring the Mellanox InfiniBand OFED Driver for VMware vSphereRev 1.8.2
Mellanox Technologies
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5.2.2 Networking
The InfiniBand package includes a networking module called IPoIB, which causes each Infini-
Band port on the VMware ESXi Server machine to be exposed as one or more physical network
adapters, also referred to as uplinks or vmnics. To verify that all supported InfiniBand ports on
the host are recognized and up, perform the following steps:
1. Connect to the VMware ESXi Server machine using the interface of VMware vSphere Client.
2. Select the "Configuration" tab.
3. Click the "Network Adapters" entry which appears in the "Hardware" list.
A "Network Adapters" list is displayed, describing per uplink the "Device" it resides on, the port
"Speed", the port "Configured" state, and the "vSwitch" name it connects to.
To create and configure virtual network adapters connected to InfiniBand uplinks, follow the
instructions in the ESXi Server Configuration Guide document.
5.2.3 Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) Support
To support VLAN for VMware ESXi Server users, one of the elements on the virtual or physical
network must tag the Ethernet frames with an 802.1Q tag. There are three different configuration
modes to tag and untag the frames as virtual machine frames:
1. Virtual Machine Guest Tagging (VGT Mode)
2. ESXi Server Virtual Switch Tagging (VST Mode)
3. External Switch Tagging (EST Mode)
To configure VLAN for InfiniBand networking, the following entities may need to be configured
according to the mode you intend to use:
• Subnet Manager Configuration
Ethernet VLANs are implemented on InfiniBand using Partition Keys (See RFC 4392 for informa-
tion). Thus, the InfiniBand network must be configured first. This can be done by configuring the
Subnet Manager (SM) on your subnet. Note that this configuration is needed for both VLAN configu-
ration modes, VGT and VST.
For further information on the InfiniBand Partition Keys configuration for IPoIB, see the Subnet
Manager manual installed in your subnet.
The maximum number of Partition Keys available on Mellanox HCAs is:
• 128 for ConnectX® IB family
• Check with IB switch documentation for the number of supported partition keys
• Guest Operating System Configuration
All features supported by Ethernet adapter uplinks are also supported by InfiniBand
port uplinks (e.g., VMware® VMotionTM, NIC teaming, and High Availability), and
their setting is performed transparently.
EST is supported for Ethernet switches and can be used beyond IB/Eth Gateways trans-
parently to VMware ESXi Servers within the InfiniBand subnet.