[openib-general] IPoIB Loading and Starting

[Michael Krause]

At 07:55 AM 9/27/2004, Roland Dreier wrote:
>     Roland> Also, a node may have many P_Keys assigned, only a few of
>     Roland> which are used for IP traffic.  Administrators don't like
>     Roland> to have to deal with 50+ network devices.
>
>     Michael> What does this have to do with anything?  I'm not
>     Michael> advocating having a large number of P_Key for IP traffic.
>
>The issue comes up on nodes that belong to many partitions.  If we
>expect the IPoIB driver to create a network interface for every P_Key
>(the only sane thing the kernel can do if we don't want userspace to
>have to explicitly configure P_Keys) then a single HCA with a 64-entry
>P_Key table and 2 ports could create 128 IPoIB interfaces.
>
>In any case this is really a cosmetic issue.

I don't follow why this is cosmetic.  The SM will configure whatever number 
of P_Key per port (CA or switch) that it desires.  IPoverIB does not and 
should not care about this.  IPoverIB should probe the SM/SA to determine 
what and how many P_Key it should use.  It should then establish unique 
interfaces for each P_Key.  This is no different than what is done for 
802.1Q where a separate driver instance exists per tag.  This was our 
intent when we wrote the specification.

Mike

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