Red Hat Training

A Red Hat training course is available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux

13.6. Configuring the Subnet Manager

13.6.1. Determining Necessity

Most InfiniBand switches come with an embedded subnet manager. However, if a more up to date subnet manager is required than the one in the switch firmware, or if more complete control than the switch manager allows is required, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 includes the opensm subnet manager. All InfiniBand networks must have a subnet manager running for the network to function. This is true even when doing a simple network of two machines with no switch and the cards are plugged in back to back, a subnet manager is required for the link on the cards to come up. It is possible to have more than one, in which case one will act as controller, and any other subnet managers will act as ports that will take over should the controller subnet manager fail.

13.6.2. Configuring the opensm main configuration file

The opensm program keeps its main configuration file in /etc/rdma/opensm.conf. Users may edit this file at any time and edits will be kept on upgrade. There is extensive documentation of the options in the file itself. However, for the two most common edits needed, setting the GUID to bind to and the PRIORITY to run with, it is highly recommended that the opensm.conf file is not edited but instead edit /etc/sysconfig/opensm. If there are no edits to the base /etc/rdma/opensm.conf file, it will get upgraded whenever the opensm package is upgraded. As new options are added to this file regularly, this makes it easier to keep the current configuration up to date. If the opensm.conf file has been changed, then on upgrade, it might be necessary to merge new options into the edited file.

13.6.3. Configuring the opensm startup options

The options in the /etc/sysconfig/opensm file control how the subnet manager is actually started, as well as how many copies of the subnet manager are started. For example, a dual port InfiniBand card, with each port plugged into physically separate networks, will need a copy of the subnet manager running on each port. The opensm subnet manager will only manage one subnet per instance of the application and must be started once for each subnet that needs to be managed. In addition, if there is more than one opensm server, then set the priorities on each server to control which are to be ports and which are to be controller.
The file /etc/sysconfig/opensm is used to provide a simple means to set the priority of the subnet manager and to control which GUID the subnet manager binds to. There is an extensive explanation of the options in the /etc/sysconfig/opensm file itself. Users need only read and follow the directions in the file itself to enable failover and multifabric operation of opensm.

13.6.4. Creating a P_Key definition

By default, opensm.conf looks for the file /etc/rdma/partitions.conf to get a list of partitions to create on the fabric. All fabrics must contain the 0x7fff subnet, and all switches and all hosts must belong to that fabric. Any other partition can be created in addition to that, and all hosts and all switches do not have to be members of these additional partitions. This allows an administrator to create subnets akin to Ethernet’s VLANs on InfiniBand fabrics. If a partition is defined with a given speed, such as 40 Gbps, and there is a host on the network unable to do 40 Gbps, then that host will be unable to join the partition even if it has permission to do so as it will be unable to match the speed requirements, therefore it is recommended that the speed of a partition be set to the slowest speed of any host with permission to join the partition. If a faster partition for some subset of hosts is required, create a different partition with the higher speed.
The following partition file would result in a default 0x7fff partition at a reduced speed of 10 Gbps, and a partition of 0x0002 with a speed of 40 Gbps:
~]$ more /etc/rdma/partitions.conf
# For reference:
# IPv4 IANA reserved multicast addresses:
#   http://www.iana.org/assignments/multicast-addresses/multicast-addresses.txt
# IPv6 IANA reserved multicast addresses:
#   http://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv6-multicast-addresses/ipv6-multicast-addresses.xml
#
# mtu =
#   1 = 256
#   2 = 512
#   3 = 1024
#   4 = 2048
#   5 = 4096
#
# rate =
#   2  =   2.5 GBit/s
#   3  =  10   GBit/s
#   4  =  30   GBit/s
#   5  =   5   GBit/s
#   6  =  20   GBit/s
#   7  =  40   GBit/s
#   8  =  60   GBit/s
#   9  =  80   GBit/s
#   10 = 120   GBit/s

Default=0x7fff, rate=3, mtu=4, scope=2, defmember=full:
        ALL, ALL_SWITCHES=full;
Default=0x7fff, ipoib, rate=3, mtu=4, scope=2:
        mgid=ff12:401b::ffff:ffff       # IPv4 Broadcast address
        mgid=ff12:401b::1               # IPv4 All Hosts group
        mgid=ff12:401b::2               # IPv4 All Routers group
        mgid=ff12:401b::16              # IPv4 IGMP group
        mgid=ff12:401b::fb              # IPv4 mDNS group
        mgid=ff12:401b::fc              # IPv4 Multicast Link Local Name Resolution group
        mgid=ff12:401b::101             # IPv4 NTP group
        mgid=ff12:401b::202             # IPv4 Sun RPC
        mgid=ff12:601b::1               # IPv6 All Hosts group
        mgid=ff12:601b::2               # IPv6 All Routers group
        mgid=ff12:601b::16              # IPv6 MLDv2-capable Routers group
        mgid=ff12:601b::fb              # IPv6 mDNS group
        mgid=ff12:601b::101             # IPv6 NTP group
        mgid=ff12:601b::202             # IPv6 Sun RPC group
        mgid=ff12:601b::1:3             # IPv6 Multicast Link Local Name Resolution group
        ALL=full, ALL_SWITCHES=full;

ib0_2=0x0002, rate=7, mtu=4, scope=2, defmember=full:
        ALL, ALL_SWITCHES=full;
ib0_2=0x0002, ipoib, rate=7, mtu=4, scope=2:
        mgid=ff12:401b::ffff:ffff       # IPv4 Broadcast address
        mgid=ff12:401b::1               # IPv4 All Hosts group
        mgid=ff12:401b::2               # IPv4 All Routers group
        mgid=ff12:401b::16              # IPv4 IGMP group
        mgid=ff12:401b::fb              # IPv4 mDNS group
        mgid=ff12:401b::fc              # IPv4 Multicast Link Local Name Resolution group
        mgid=ff12:401b::101             # IPv4 NTP group
        mgid=ff12:401b::202             # IPv4 Sun RPC
        mgid=ff12:601b::1               # IPv6 All Hosts group
        mgid=ff12:601b::2               # IPv6 All Routers group
        mgid=ff12:601b::16              # IPv6 MLDv2-capable Routers group
        mgid=ff12:601b::fb              # IPv6 mDNS group
        mgid=ff12:601b::101             # IPv6 NTP group
        mgid=ff12:601b::202             # IPv6 Sun RPC group
        mgid=ff12:601b::1:3             # IPv6 Multicast Link Local Name Resolution group
        ALL=full, ALL_SWITCHES=full;

13.6.5. Enabling opensm

Users need to enable the opensm service as it is not enabled by default when installed. Issue the following command as root:
~]# systemctl enable opensm