Unrecognized Inifiniband HCA

[Grzegorz Junka]

On 10/05/2018 15:35, Justin Clift wrote:
> On 2018-05-10 10:21, Grzegorz Junka wrote:
>> On 08/05/2018 23:41, Justin Clift wrote:
> <snip>
>>> That's probably a ConnectX (series 1) Mellanox card.  Those can 
>>> operate in
>>> either Infiniband mode, or Ethernet mode.
>>>
>>> Which mode are you wanting it to run in? :)
>>>
>>> As a thought, the FreeBSD wiki page has a bit of info:
>>>
>>>   https://wiki.freebsd.org/InfiniBand
>>>
>>> For that card to be recognised at all, it'll need the mlx4 driver(s) 
>>> to load.
>>>
>>> I don't remember the exact one off hand (it's been a while), but 
>>> some searching
>>> online for mlx4 and FreeBSD should turn up the right bits.
>>
>> Many thanks Justin. This is the first time I am hearing about an
>> Infiniband card operating in Ethernet mode. These cards come with two
>> CX4/SFF 8470 ports. It's not possible to connect standard Ethernet
>> cables that I know of (not even SFP modules). Do you mean that they
>> can operate in Ethernet mode over the CX4 cable?
>
> Yep. :)
>
> Back in the day when these cards were current tech, CX4 was an acceptable
> connector for 10GbE.  The Infiniband switches from that era (that I had
> access to) were mostly Infiniband only though.
>
> But 10GbE CX4 switches did exist, and can still be found reasonably 
> cheaply
> on Ebay.  eg:
>
>   * HP ProCurve 6 port CX4 10GBe switch
>     https://www.ebay.com/itm/152232294328
>
>   * HP ProCurve 48 port 1GbE switch, with 2x 10GbE CX4 ports on the back
>     https://www.ebay.com/itm/281899832599
>
> One of the good things about those HP ProCurve switches... being 
> enterprise
> gear they just keep working.  For Years.
>
> From memory, HP still releases firmware security updates for them (for
> free) to this day. Unlike (say) Cisco. ;)
>
> Note - As a data point, FreeNAS (based on FreeBSD) includes the 
> 10/40GbE driver
> for these cards by default.  With FreeNAS they work as 10GbE "out of the
> box". :D
>
> Hopefully that helps. :)

Thanks Justin. That's an amazing piece of tech history :)

GrzegorzJ