ib(7D) Devices ib(7D)NAMEib - InfiniBand Bus Nexus Driver
DESCRIPTION
The ib (IB nexus) driver is a pseudo nexus driver that supports enumer‐
ation of port devices, VPPA (Virtual Physical Point Attachment),
HCA_SVC (HCA Service) devices, and I/O controllers (IOC) on the
InfiniBand fabric that are visible to the host and provides interfaces
to cfgadm_ib(1M) to manage hot-plugging of IB devices. The ib nexus
driver enumerates the port device, VPPA devices and HCA_SVC devices
based on entries specified in the ib.conf file. IOC devices are enumer‐
ated on demand. The IB nexus driver uses InfiniBand Device Manager
services (ibdm(7D)) to enumerate port devices, VPPA devices, HCA_SVC
devices, and IOCs on the IB fabric.
CONFIGURATION
You configure the ib driver by defining properties in the ib.conf file.
The IB nexus driver supports the following properties:
┌──────────────┬─────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│PROPERTY NAME │ DEFAULT │ POSSIBLE VALUES │
├──────────────┼─────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│port-svc-list │ "" │ List of service names, for example: srv │
├──────────────┼─────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│vppa-svc-list │ "" │ List of service names, for example: ipib │
├──────────────┼─────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│hca-svc-list │ "" │ List of service names, for example: hca_nfs │
└──────────────┴─────────┴─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
The port-svc-list property defines the list of port communication ser‐
vice names per port. The IB nexus driver creates a device instance for
each entry in this property per Host Channel Adapter (HCA) port. The
ib.conf file contains a port-svc-list="" entry by default. You update
port-svc-list with service names you want to add to the system.
The vppa-svc-list property defines the list of VPPA communication ser‐
vice names per port per partition key. The IB nexus driver creates a
device instance for each entry in this property per Host Channel
Adapter (HCA) port. The ib.conf file contains a vppa-svc-list="" entry
by default. You update vppa-svc-list with service names you want to add
to the system.
The hca-svc-list property defines the list of HCA_SVC communication
service names per HCA. The IB nexus driver creates a device instance
for each entry in this property per Host Channel Adapter (HCA). The
ib.conf file contains a hca-svc-list="" entry by default. You update
hca-svc-list with service names you want to add to the system.
The service name specified in port-svc-list, vppa-svc-list and hca-svc-
list must be unique, be a maximum of four characters long, and is lim‐
ited to digits 0-9 and letters a-z and A-Z.
IOC drivers (which are parented by the IB nexus driver) may themselves
have .conf files. To distinguish those cases from pseudo drivers par‐
ented by IB nexus, such drivers should include the "ib-node-type"
property with value merge in the IOC driver.conf file. That property
ensures that properties from the .conf file are merged with other prop‐
erties found through hardware probing.
EXAMPLES
Example 1: A sample ib.conf file with one service name entry for PORT
communication services.
#
# Copyright 2001-2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.
# Use is subject to license terms.
#
port-svc-list=""
vppa-svc-list="";
hca-svc-list="";
In Example 1, the IB nexus driver does not create any port/vppa/hca_svc
device instances.
Example 2: A sample ib.conf file with one entry for "srv" service:
port-svc-list="srv"
vppa-svc-list="";
hca-svc-list="";
The IB nexus driver creates one srv service instance for every HCA port
that exists on the host. For example, if there are two HCAs, each with
two ports on the host, the IB nexus driver creates four instances of
the srv service.
Example 3: A sample ib.conf file with one service name entry for
each of Port and VPPA communication services:
port-svc-list="srv"
vppa-svc-list="ipib";
hca-svc-list="";
If there are two HCAs in the system with two ports each and each port
has two valid PKEY values, the IB nexus driver creates four instances
of srv service (one for each port). It also creates eight instances
of ipd service (one per each port/PKEY combination).
Example 4: A sample ib.conf file with one service name entry for
each of Port, VPPA and HCA_SVC communication services:
port-svc-list="srv";
vppa-svc-list="ipib";
hca-svc-list="hca_nfs";
The IB nexus driver creates one instance of hca_nfs service for each
HCA in the system.
Example 5: IOC driver .conf
ib-node-type="merge";
enable-special-mode="on";
FILES
/kernel/drv/ib 32-bit x86 ELF kernel module
/kernel/drv/amd64/ib 64-bit x86 ELF kernel module
/kernel/drv/sparcv9/ib 64-bit SPARC ELF kernel module
/kernel/drv/ib.conf driver configuration file
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for a description of the following attribute:
┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
│ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Architecture │SPARC, x86 │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Availability │SUNWhea, SUNWib │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Interface Stability │Consolidation Private │
└─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
SEE ALSOcfgadm_ib(1M), driver.conf(4), ib(4), attributes(5), ibcm(7D),
ibdm(7D), ibtl(7D)
Writing Device Drivers
InfiniBand Architecture Specification, Volume 1: Release 1.1
System Administration Guide: Basic Administration
DIAGNOSTICS
In addition to being logged, the following messages may appear on the
system console. All messages are formatted in the following manner:
ib: WARNING: Error message...
unit-address property in %s.conf not well-formed.
The driver.conf file does not have a valid "unit-addr" property
defined. This property is an array of strings.
cannot find unit-address in %s.conf.
The driver.conf file does not have a valid "unit-addr" property
defined. This property is an array of strings.
Waiting for Port %d initialization.
Waiting for port initialization from subnet manager.
SunOS 5.11 26 Jan 2009 ib(7D)
