[openib-general] OpenIB and OpenRDMA: Convergence on common RDMA APIs and ULPs for Linux

[Grant Grundler]

On Wed, May 25, 2005 at 07:35:52PM -0700, Roland Dreier wrote:
> I believe the way forward is to evolve the existing drivers/infiniband
> code already in Linux into a drivers/rdma that supports both IB and
> RNICs.  To be extremely blunt, I believe the RNIC-PI is irrelevant to
> the Linux kernel -- no IB vendors will support ripping out a working
> midlayer and starting from scratch, and it doesn't make sense to have
> two essentially equivalent midlayers in the same kernel.

Yes, I think that's an accurate assessment.

...
> The existing OpenIB SDP code will be a good example to study as we
> determine what abstractions need to be added to make it simple for
> consumers to deal with the differences between IB and RNIC.

Venkata,
Interesting coincidence: I was talking with someone (at HP) today
who knows substantially more than I do about RNICs.
They indicated RNICs need to manage TCP state on the card from userspace.
I suspect that's only possible through a private interface
(e.g. ioctl() or /proc) or the non-existant (in kernel.org)
TOE implementation. Is this correct?

If it is correct, any ideas/proposals on how that functionality
will get into kernel.org and where it might fit?

Solving the RDMA part of the problem isn't useful if one can't
configure/manage the TCP part of the RNIC.

hth,
grant