Date: Thu, 26 May 2016 10:31:21 -0500 From: Jason Bacon <bacon4000@gmail.com> To: Grzegorz Junka <list1@gjunka.com>, freebsd-infiniband@freebsd.org Subject: Re: InfiniBand hw support out of the box? Message-ID: <574716C9.7080903@gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <cc3744d3-1428-af77-4039-741fa0be548a@gjunka.com> References: <ff69fed7-7a51-996c-a8a3-447d548c6ff0@gjunka.com> <5746F418.1050105@gmail.com> <cc3744d3-1428-af77-4039-741fa0be548a@gjunka.com>
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Well, the kernel code and kernel modules are still a work-in-progress
and could cause instability, including panics. Forcing the user to build
them manually is a form of notification that they're not ready for
prime-time. Since the kernel modules only take a few minutes to build,
there wouldn't be much advantage to including them by default.
On the flip side, installing the IB userland basically amounts to
installing IB headers and libraries and enabling a feature in a few
networking commands. This poses minimal risk and saves the end-user
hours of compilation every time the base is updated.
Regards,
JB
On 05/26/16 08:07, Grzegorz Junka wrote:
> Yeah, I agree, I don't quite understand why those modules aren't build
> with the generic kernel if so many other much less useful modules are
> still being build and shipped wit the generic kernel. It's quite a
> hassle to maintain custom kernels/modules on production servers.
>
> Grzegorz
>
>
> On 26/05/2016 13:03, Jason Bacon wrote:
>>
>> I think IB support in the generic kernel is unlikely any time soon,
>> if ever, but building the kernel modules only takes a few minutes.
>> Instructions are on the wiki in case you weren't aware:
>>
>> https://wiki.freebsd.org/InfiniBand
>>
>> You still have to do a buildworld to update your userland tools,
>> though. I've made the argument that the userland tools could and
>> should be built with IB support now. It adds a trivial number of
>> files and only modifies a few binaries.
>>
>> This would allow someone to get IB support running in minutes instead
>> of hours, and would prevent freebsd-update from replacing ib-enabled
>> files with generic ones.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Jason
>>
>> On 05/26/16 04:45, Grzegorz Junka wrote:
>>> Is there any InfiniBand card supported in FreeBSD by the generic
>>> kernel/modules without having to recompile kernel or compile kernel
>>> modules?
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>>
>>
>
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