[openib-general] IP addressing on InfiniBand networks

[James Lentini]

On Wed, 29 Jun 2005, Roland Dreier wrote:

> James>   - IB services (both kernel and user space) will be configured using
> James>     IP addresses. By IB services, I'm referring to protocols that are
> James>     layered directly on top of the InfiniBand protocols (e.g. SDP,
> James>     NFS-RDMA, iSER, etc.).
> James>   - IB services will resolve IP addresses to IB addresses using IPoIB
> James>     ARP (all IB nodes would be required to support IPoIB).
> James>   - each IB service would place appropriate IP address information in
> James>     its protocol messages
>
> That's mostly right, except that I would leave it up to the individual
> protocols if and how they want to use IP addressing.  For example, the
> SCSI RDMA Protocol (SRP) published by INCITS T10 does not use IP
> addresses in any way, and it seems that should be allowed and supported.

Thanks for the clarification. I understand your position now.

I think it is worth reiterating the two major dependencies imposed by 
this solution:

  - IB nodes must run IPoIB
  - ULPs must add IP addressing information on IB networks

Of those two, I see the second as the most difficult. The 
standardization of additional protocol messages may take a significant 
amount of time.