Chapter 3. Configuring RoCE

Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) provides remote execution for Direct Memory Access (DMA). RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) is a network protocol that utilizes RDMA over an Ethernet network. For configuration, RoCE requires specific hardware and some of the hardware vendors are Mellanox, Broadcom, and QLogic.

3.1. Overview of RoCE protocol versions

RoCE is a network protocol that enables remote direct memory access (RDMA) over Ethernet.

The following are the different RoCE versions:

RoCE v1
The RoCE version 1 protocol is an Ethernet link layer protocol with ethertype 0x8915 that enables the communication between any two hosts in the same Ethernet broadcast domain.
RoCE v2
The RoCE version 2 protocol exists on the top of either the UDP over IPv4 or the UDP over IPv6 protocol. For RoCE v2, the UDP destination port number is 4791.

The RDMA_CM sets up a reliable connection between a client and a server for transferring data. RDMA_CM provides an RDMA transport-neutral interface for establishing connections. The communication uses a specific RDMA device and message-based data transfers.

Important

Using different versions like RoCE v2 on the client and RoCE v1 on the server is not supported. In such a case, configure both the server and client to communicate over RoCE v1.

RoCE v1 works at the Data Link layer (Layer 2) and only supports the communication of two machines in the same network. By default, RoCE v2 is available. It works at the Network Layer (Layer 3). RoCE v2 supports packets routing that provides a connection with multiple Ethernet.

Additional resources

3.2. Temporarily changing the default RoCE version

Using the RoCE v2 protocol on the client and RoCE v1 on the server is not supported. If the hardware in your server supports RoCE v1 only, configure your clients for RoCE v1 to communicate with the server. For example, you can configure a client that uses the mlx5_0 driver for the Mellanox ConnectX-5 InfiniBand device that only supports RoCE v1.

Note

Changes described here will remain effective until you reboot the host.

Prerequisites

  • The client uses an InfiniBand device with RoCE v2 protocol.
  • The server uses an InfiniBand device that only supports RoCE v1.

Procedure

  1. Create the /sys/kernel/config/rdma_cm/mlx5_0/ directory: 

    # mkdir /sys/kernel/config/rdma_cm/mlx5_0/

  2. Display the default RoCE mode: 

    # cat /sys/kernel/config/rdma_cm/mlx5_0/ports/1/default_roce_mode

RoCE v2

  3. Change the default RoCE mode to version 1: 

    # echo "IB/RoCE v1" > /sys/kernel/config/rdma_cm/mlx5_0/ports/1/default_roce_mode