# FreeBSD13 and Infiniband



## fr33bsd (Aug 16, 2021)

Hi folks,

I remember that I read 2018 or 2019 something about support of infiniband. I read that it was not fully supported. I have mellanox connect-x3 (56GBit FDR, 40GBit QDR) nics and I remember that I had to rebuild the kernel of the FreeBSD I used (I don't remember the version) to test the ib-nic. I also remember it worked, I could play ping-pong using ping, but my tests did not go further, because I was short in time and those ib-nics were supposed to be used in linux boxes. I also remember that I read something about lack of support of nfs. I remember that those nics just run in ethernet mode unter FreeBSD (no ib mode?). Is this true?

Now, I would like to discuss here what support those mellanox connect-x3 ib do have. Does RDMA work? What about nfs? What about support of iSER?

If you have experience with that technologies, please, feel free to join this thread.


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## Phishfry (Aug 20, 2021)

I see that you probably have the CX-354A adapter. That has QSFP connectors on it.
If FreeBSD runs these as ethernet that is probably best way to use them in my opinion.


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## Phishfry (Aug 20, 2021)

FreeBSD does have a driver for the infiband version of the card. (There is also an ethernet version of this card)





						mlx4ib(4)
					






					www.freebsd.org
				




Capabilities can be found here.
/usr/src/sys/dev/mlx4/mlx4_ib/

Mellanox has OFED driver for FreeBSD. So to get RDMA you may need to build from there. I don't see it in FreeBSD.


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