Windows OpenFabrics

2.2.1 Release Notes

04/13/2010


Overview

Supported Platforms, Operating Systems and InfiniBand Hardware

Installation Notes

How to Install

Unattended Install

HCA Device Driver Installation

Server 2008 HPC Install Notes

Setting the IPoIB Interface IP Address

Uninstall

Verifying the Installation

Trouble Shooting

InfiniBand Subnet Management as a Windows Service

Local Network Adapter Ordering

Which WinOF release is installed?

QLogic VNIC Configuration

DAT & uDAPL Configuration

SRP (SCSI RDMA Protocol) Driver Installation

WinVerbs

Known Issues


 

Overview

The Windows OpenFabrics (WinOF) release package is composed of software modules intended for use on Microsoft Windows based computer systems connected via an InfiniBand fabric.

 Binary files generated from the OpenIB-windows developers subversion (svn) source tree 'svn://openib.tc.cornell.edu' (branches\WOF2-2 svn revision 2778) are packaged into a WIX (Windows Installer Xml) single file install package referred to as the Windows OpenFabrics (WinOF) release 2.2.1.
 

This WinOF 2.2.1 is a point release to fix an infrequent installer bug; all other code is the same as the WinOF 2.2 release.

The Windows OpenFabrics (WinOF) release package contains the following:

OpenFabrics InfiniBand core drivers and Upper Level Protocols (ULPs):

OpenFabrics utilities:

Documentation

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Supported Platforms, Operating Systems and Infiniband Hardware

CPU architectures

Operating Systems

Supported HCAs (Host Channel Adapters)

Mellanox - all InfiniBand HCA products are supported.

Mellanox Firmware (FW) versions and update tools

Current HCA firmware version can be viewed from the 'vstat' command or the Mellanox firmware tool flint.

Supported Switches

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Installation Notes

User mode tools and diagnostics are installed in '%SystemDrive%\Program Files\WinOF'.  Although device driver modules initially reside in '%SystemDrive%\Program Files\WinOF\Drivers', when installed the Windows device installer copies driver files to %SystemRoot%\system32 & %SystemRoot%\SysWOW64'. DAT & DAPL runtime libraries are installed into %SystemRoot% in order to be accessible by user mode applications.
WinOF user mode executables are designed to be run from a Command Prompt window; see  'Start->Program Files-> Windows OpenFabrics-> Command Prompt'.

'%SystemDrive%\Program Files\WinOF' is appended to the system wide search path environment variable 'PATH'; any command windows created after the installation will have the updated %PATH% environment variable, hence will be able to access WinOF executables.

The ‘default’ installation installs ‘released/free’ (not checked/debug) versions of drivers and executables. Debug/Checked versions are available as an install feature.

A single instance of a subnet manager, opensm.exe, must be running on a fabric connected node in order for the Infiniband fabric to be configured and useful; either Windows or Linux OFED opensm work well.

It is recommended that OpenSM be run as a Windows service.  A typical WinOF install will install OpenSM as a Windows service which is disabled; after an installation, choose your openSM node and start the openSM service.  See the WinOF Manual for details on opensm as a service.
By selecting the 'OpenSM_Service_Started' install feature, a local OpenSM subnet management service will be automatically started.

Note, the opensm.exe process must continue to run in order to maintain Infiniband fabric configuration. Should the opensm.exe process die, restart the service if not automatic or re-run opensm.exe in order to continue correct fabric operation.

For more subnet management information, consult the Windows OpenFabrics manual.

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How to Install

Summary

Requirements

Install HCA hardware prior to installing the Windows OpenFabrics Release package. Upon reboot, cancel any attempts to install new device hardware from the "Found New Hardware Wizard".

If you have previously installed openib-windows, WinOF (Windows OpenFabrics) packages or vendor supplied Infiniband packages, uninstall and reboot prior to installing this version of Windows OpenFabrics (WinOF).

For an existing Windows OpenFabrics (WinOF) uninstall
    Start-> Programs-> Windows OpenFabrics-> Uninstall WinOF
      -or-
    Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs-> Windows OpenFabrics->Remove.

openib-windows (IB stack before WinOF 1.0 release) uninstall: (not the normal uninstall case)

  1. Disable any Local Area Connections which are bound to the IPoIB network adapter.
  2. Uninstall the IPoIB driver - My computer->Manage->Devices->Network Adapters->IPoIB*
  3. Stop the openSM subnet manager if it is running on the local node.
  4. Uninstall the Infiniband HCA device; don't forget the System Device-> InfiniBand Fabric

 

REBOOT

Upon system restart, cancel the 'Found New Hardware Wizard' attempts to install drivers for newly discovered PCI device (HCA).

'My Computer->Manage->Device Manager' should display 'Other Devices->?PCI device' which is your Infiniband HCA device.

Install

Vista installation only; open a privileged Administrator command window and type

    start/wait msiexec /I WinOF_2-1_wlh_xxx.msi

For all other Windows variants, double-clicking the installer file (.msi) works correctly to start a WinOF installation.
From a login session with administrator privileges, File Explorer view, double-click the WinOF_M-m{-p}_OSE_arch.msi file to begin the Windows OpenFabrics installation.

Where 'M-n{-p}' indicates Major release number, Minor release number, and optional point-release number.

 OSE - Operating System Environment:

'_arch_' will be one of

Follow the on-screen instructions.

Answer 'yes' or 'Continue' to any notifier windows which reference non-WHQL'ed driver installation.
These non-WHQL'ed driver install questions can not be disabled via 'My Computer->Properties->Hardware->Driver Signing->Ignore'.

Bottom-line - The digitally signed WinOF drivers in this package are not WHQL'ed per se, although they are built from driver source which has been or is in process of being WHQL'ed by hardware vendors who participate in the open source WinOF development process.

 

 **** WARNING ****

Should any 'Welcome to the Found New Hardware Wizard' windows popup after the WinOF install has started, just ignore (window will disappear in a few seconds) or 'Cancel' the errant popup window.  For Windows Server 2003 (SP1) you can safely ignore the errant FNHW popup window; for Windows XP (SP2) the errant FNHW popups need to be 'cancelled' in order for the WinOF install to proceed. The report back from Microsoft on these 'Found New Hardware Wizard' windows popping up, is they are due to the fact the WinOF drivers are not WHQL'ed and hence are not trusted by Windows; MS claims this is a 'feature'.

An artifact of cancelling an errant 'Found New Hardware' popup window may induce an errant taskbar Information notifier/bubble indicating there may have been problems installing your hardware drivers; IGNORE/cancel this information bubble, likely the device installation proceeded without error. Check the Device Manager views for the Infiniband HCA and IPoIB Network Adapters for initial verification of correct installation.

You do need to answer 'Yes' or 'Continue' to those notifier windows which reference non-WHQL driver installation. If you have previously set My Computer->Properties->Hardware->Driver Signing->Ignore, the FNHW windows likely will occur anyway.

Should the install appear to hang, look around for occluded notifier windows waiting for a response which are covered by existing windows.
 

Install type: Custom only

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HCA Driver Installation

WinOF driver installation uses the Device Installation Frameworks for Applications (DIFxApp) and the Windows Driver Store.
The  Microsoft Plug-n-Play (PNP) subsystem controls which Infiniband HCA (Host Channel Adapter) device driver is loaded from the Windows Driver Store.  HCA driver selection is based on PNP device ID probing, thus InfiniHost, ConnectX or both drivers can be loaded by the PNP subsystem.
Using DIFxApp and PNP device probing results in the WinOF installation not requiring a specific HCA model [ConnectX or InfiniHost] feature selection; HCA vendor is the feature selection criteria.


 

Unattended Install

An unattended WinOF install will install the following 'default' options
  • Infiniband Core modules - Mellanox HCA driver (see HCA driver selection note), IB core stack, libraries, utilities and documentation.
  • IPoIB - Internet Protocols over InfiniBand
  • WSD - (Win2K8/3 only, not installed on XP) Win Sock Direct
  • ND - NetworkDirect [started automatically (via ndinstall.exe) only for Server 2008/HPC and Vista].
  • DAT & DAPL (v2.0) runtime libraries + dapltes2t.exe (dt-svr & dt-cli).

HCA selection for all Windows variants (Server 2008, HPC & Vista)

Default HCA driver selection is driven by the Windows PNP subsystem; no user selection required or supported.

Should WSD not be a desirable unattended install option (Win2008/3 only), currently you would install unattended then execute the
command 'installsp -r' on each node to remove WSD.

To perform a silent unattended installation for Server 2003/XP, invoke the following command from a command window.

start/wait msiexec.exe /i WinOF_2-1_wnet_x64.msi  /qn  /quiet  /log %TEMP%\WOF-install.log

'/log dev:path\logFilename.log' is optional.

msiexec.exe /? for all options.

Examples:

Windows XP - Mellanox HCA Hardware - same as above with .msi name change (wnet --> wxp).

Server 2008 / Vista - any Mellanox HCA Hardware

 

Non-HCA Install Features added to above msiexec command line examples:

Default install +  OpenSM Started on the local system

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Server 2008 HPC Install Notes

Device drivers in WinOF 2.0 and later releases are Digitally signed by the 3rd party Software Publisher 'OpenFabrics Alliance', although they are not WHQL'ed (Windows Quality Hardware Labs) certified. The WinOF source code is used  by hardware vendors to achieve WHQL certification.

The lack of WHQL driver certification places WinOF drivers in the 'unknown 3rd party SW publishers' category.
When installing 'Unknown 3rd party SW publishers' drivers, Windows prompts on the install console for instructions as what to do (Install, Trust or not)?
This prompting results in a failed remote node install when performing a first-time unattended WinOF install.
By preloading the remote node's Trusted 3rd party Software Publisher Certificate Store, the unattended install will proceed without prompting, thus allowing the WinOF install to complete successfully.

Be aware: if a node is reimaged (same or different template applied) the established trust of the OpenFabric Alliance is destroyed, thus the OFA certificate needs to be reinstalled.

How to install WinOF drivers and components in the HPC Server 2008 environment.

Windows Deployment Manager usage for HPC compute node provisioning

Microsoft has chosen WDM to provision HPC cluster compute nodes; see  Microsoft HPC installs for details.

In support of the new Microsoft WDM HPC cluster provisioning process, WinOF now supports an administrative install mode which is a method to extract WinOF files to the local filesystem without actually installing them; thus making WinOF files accessible to WDM provisioning.

Disclaimer - WDM 'driver' provisioning ONLY works for WHQL'ed drivers; WinOF drivers are not WHQL'ed.  For WinOF installs, see previous node template provisioning discussion.

msiexec /A WinOF_2-1_wlh_x64.msi TARGETDIR=dev:\path-to-extracted-files    # last folder in path-to-extracted-files must NOT exist.

example:  msiexec /A WinOF_2-1_wlh_x64.msi TARGETDIR=%TEMP%\WOF   (note: TARGETDIR is case sensitive, WOF must not exist)

The above command creates the folder structure: %TEMP%\WOF\PFiles\WinOF\

WinOF device driver-less installs:

Normally WinOF device driver files are installed by processing the driver '.inf' files. To install the WinOF package by selecting install features without installing any device drivers [HCA, IPoIB, ND, WSD, SRP or VNIC] (assumed reliance on WDM to install device drivers) can be accomplished with the following interactive install command:

start/wait msiexec /I WinOF_2-1_wlh_x64.msi  NODRV=1

To skip driver installation for an unattended install

    start/wait msiexec /I WinOF_2-1_wlh_x64.msi /qn /quiet NODRV=1

Note: when uninstalling WinOF from an installation which was done with NODRV=1, you MUST include NODRV=1 on the uninstall command line; otherwise WinOF drivers will be uninstalled also.

    start/wait msiexec /X WinOF_2-1_wlh_x64.msi /qn /quiet NODRV=1

See Unattended Installations for further references.

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Setting the IPoIB Interface IP Address

The Windows command 'netsh' will assist in assigning an IP address to an IPoIB interface.
By default, an IPoIB interface is configured to use DHCP. The following discussion deals with setting a static IP address on an IPoIB interface.
If your system has two Ethernet ports, then IPoIB interfaces (HCA port 1, 2...) will be assigned to 'Local Area Connection 3' and 'Local Area Connection 4'.  If you system has a single Ethernet port, then IPoIB interface is 'Local Area Connection 2'.

For Server 2008/HPC systems, the WinOF installation follows the above discussion. In defining HPC network interfaces, the IPoIB network will eventually be identified as the 'Application' network '.  A few minutes after a compute node is installed, the HPC  network manager will rename the installed IPoIB 'Local Area Connection X' network interface to the 'Application' network.

Display all network interface configuration information
        netsh interface ip show config
        netsh interface ip show address "Local Area Connection 3"

Config a static IP address for an IPoIB interface: [Local Area Connection 3 == 1st IPoIB interface], 10.10.4.23 is the assigned IP address
with a netmask of 255.255.255.0, the gateway is 10.10.4.1 metric is 2.

        netsh interface ip set address "Local Area Connection 3" static 10.10.4.23 255.255.255.0 10.10.4.1 2

See netsh for further reference.

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Uninstall

To uninstall a WinOF package from a single node

  1. Start--> All Programs-> Windows OpenFabrics-> Uninstall WinOF
  2. Control Panel-> Add Remove Programs-> Windows OpenFabrics-> Remove

Unattended Uninstall

From a Command Window invoke the following command; a system reboot will occur after the uninstall.

start/wait msiexec.exe  /x {3A6A276E-A636-48E8-8624-9A0DE3F2A15E} /quiet /forcerestart
  - or -
start/wait msiexec.exe  /x WinOF_wlh_2-1_x64.msi /quiet /forcerestart        # WinOF_xxxx.msi is the file used to install WinOF.

msiexec.exe /help for details.

'/log dev:path\logfilename.log'  if you wish to later view the install results.

If for some reason the Product Code {GUID} changes, the latest code can be located via
Programs-> Windows OpenFabrics-> Uninstall WinOF<right-click>Properties

Infrequently, the 'System Device->Infiniband Fabric' may not correctly uninstall. Make sure the Infiniband Fabric device is completely uninstalled; use device manager for checking. The effect of a partially uninstalled Infiniband Fabric device is IPoIB load failure upon the next WinOF install.

Uninstall Notes

  1. If the SRP (SCSI RDMA Protocol) driver has been previously installed, then in order to achieve a 'clean' uninstall, the SRP target drive(s) must be released.
     
    • Use the following diskpart.exe commands from an administrator privileged command window:
    • c:\windows\temp> diskpart.exe
          SELECT VOLUME=<Drive Letter of the SRP target to be released>        # example: SELECT VOLUME=L
          OFFLINE DISK
          EXIT
    • For additional SRP drives, repeat SELECT & OFFLINE DISK with new Drive Letter.

    The consequences of not releasing the SRP target drive(s) is that after the uninstall reboot there are lingering InfiniBand driver files. These driver files remain because while the SRP target is active they have references, thus when the uninstall attempts to delete the files the operation fails.

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Verifying the WinOF install

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Trouble Shooting

From a command window type the following quick-start commands:

A Vista WinOF installation can fail due to protection failures when installing the HCA driver. Vista HCA driver installation failure can be caused by  double-clicking the .msi installer file to start the installation.
WinOF installs for (Vista only) require the installation be started  from a privileged Administrator command window.
Start a privileged Administrator command window (Start->Command Prompt->Right-click->Run as Administrator) and execute:
    msiexec /I WinOF_xxx_yyy.msi

To create a LOG file of your WinOF installation, execute this command: msiexec /I WinOF_xxx_yyy.msi  /Lv %TEMP%\WOF-install.log
View %TEMP%\WOF-install.log

msiexec /? for details.

Server 2008 or Vista can also fail to install due to driver install files left over from previously failed install attempts; see %windir%\system32\DriverStore\{Temp|FileRepository}. Look for folders with the following in the folder name: mthca, mlx4_, netipoib, srp, vnic. Once you have located one of these folders you need to remove it as win2k8/Vista will use these files instead of what your attempting to install.; removing the folders is a pain.
Right-click the folder and select Properties->Security->Advanced, select owner tab, select Edit button, select Administrator and check the 'Replace owner on subcontainers and objects', now click 'OK', OK again, select Edit button from the securities tab, check allow 'Full Control' box and click OK, OK again. At this point you should be back to the file explorer. Now you can delete the folder!

Setupapi.log has moved in Server 2008/Vista, see '%windir%\inf\setupapi-dev.log'. Setupapi-*.log can at times contain useful install debug info.

Server 2008/Vista/HPC all use dpinst.exe to preinstall drivers into the driver store. Windows PNP (Plug-n-Play) later will deamand drivers when the hardware is recognized. dpinst.exe writes it's error information to '%windir%\dpinst.log'.

Down rev firmware will result in IPoIB not installing or other anonmolus behavior. Consult the event viewer, system error records, look for 'mthca' or 'mlx4*' entries generated when the HCA driver loads. One of the mthca or mlx4 entries will display the current firmware revision.

Firmware version information and updates are available at www.mellanox.com/support/firmware_download.php

If HCA FW is older than minimal FW
Error reported to system event log
HCA loads as memory controller to allow FW upgrade
If HCA  FW is equal or newer than optimal version
 
HCA starts OK.
Else
HCA loads OK.
Warning will be issued to system event log
My computer-> Manage-> Event Viewer-> System Events; search for mthca, mlx4 or ipoib entries.

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Incomplete Previous Uninstall

Should the previous uninstall silently fail, the next installation can fail in the Driver Install phase with the following error:
    DriverInstall - HCA Ret 2 Error 0

At this juncture, check the Device Manager and uninstall the PCI device from 'InfiniBand Host Channel Adapters', and make sure you uninstall the system device 'InfiniBand Fabric' if it is present.

REBOOT and retry the WinOF installation again.

See ibscan.bat and ibcleanup.bat @ http://www.openfabrics.org/downloads/WinOF/etc/.
ibscan will display WinOF files on your system.
ibcleanup will attempt to remove all WinOF files from your syste. WARNING - ibcleanup is not valid as a WinOF uninstall tool!

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Correct Installation Validation

From the Device Manager you should find the following devices:

Validation Test

Open a WinOF command window

  1. Start->Program Files->Windows OpenFabrics -> Command Window
  2. run vstat.exe to view HCA configuration.
  3. If IPoIB is installed (Device Manager->Network Adapters), ping another node on the InfiniBand fabric 'ping a.b.c.d'
     

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Subnet Management as a Windows Service

Limit the number of Subnet Managers on your fabric; one SM per fabric is sufficient, although redundant Subnet Managers are supported.

  1. After a 'typical' WinOF install, OpenSM is installed as a disabled Windows service named "InfiniBand Subnet Management".
    To start the OpenSM service, from a command window type 'services.msc' to start the Services manager.  From the Services manager, find and select 'InfiniBand Subnet Manager' view; Click the start button and set the service properties to 'auto' in order to restart on the next system reboot.
     
  2. Install OpenSM as an automatic/running Windows service:
    a) Select the 'OpenSM_service_Started' install feature. Once the install has completed, check that the Infiniband Subnet Manager service is running: From a command windows type 'services.msc' to start the Services manager. Find and open the InfiniBand Subnet Manager view.
     
  3. Consult the OpenSM log file @ %SystemRoot%\temp\osm.log to see what OpenSM thinks is happening.

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Local Network Adapter Ordering

Local Network Adapter ordering, which results in the IP address advertised for the system, can be managed from
    'My Network Places-> Advanced Tab-> Advanced settings'
From the Advanced settings display, the ordering of Local Network Adapters can be reordered after the IPoIB Local Network Adapters have been installed. Please check for your desired adapter ordering.

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Which WinOF release is installed?

  1. Control Pannel -->Add/Remove Programs or  -->Programs/Features entry identifies the installed WinOF release version.
  2. Start->Programs->Windows OpenFabrics (check Uninstall entry).
  3. Driver confirmation from the Device Manager:
        Query My Computer-> Manage-> Device Manager-> Network Adapters-> OpenFabrics IPoIB Adapter-> Properties-> Driver-> Details
        The subversion (svn) revision number will be listed under 'Driver Version'. The svn revision number will match what's listed in the release notes.
  4. Hold the mouse point over \Program Files\WinOF\ib_read_bw.exe to display the file version; [WinOF-Major.Minor.not-used.svn revision number].

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QLogic VNIC Configuration

The QLogic VNIC (Virtual Network Interface Card) driver in conjunction with the QLogic Ethernet Virtual I/O Controller (EVIC) provides virtual Ethernet interfaces and transport for Ethernet packets over Infiniband.

Users can modify NIC parameters through User Interface icon in Network Connections:
( Properties->"Configure..." button -> "Advanced" Tab).

Parameters available:

Vlan Id (802.1Q) 

  values from 0 to 4094 ( default 0, disabled )
  This specifies if VLAN ID-marked packet transmission is enabled and, if so, specifies the ID.

Priority (802.1P)

  values from 0 to 7 ( default 0, feature disabled)
  This specifies if priority-marked packet transmission is enabled.

Payload MTU size 

  values from 1500 to 9500 (default 1500)
  This specifies the maximum transfer unit size in 100 bytes increments.

Recv ChkSum offload 

  (default enabled)
  This specifies if IP protocols checksum calculations for receive is offloaded.

Send ChkSum offload

  (default enabled)
  This specifies if IP protocols checksum calculations for send is offloaded.
 

Secondary Path 

   (default disabled)
   Enabled - If more than one IB path to IOC exist then secondary IB instance of virtual port will be created and configured with the same parameters as primary one. Failover from Primary to Secondary IB path is transparent for user application sending data through associated NIC.

   Disabled – only one path at a time is allowed. If more than one path to IOC exists then failed path will be destroyed and next available path will be used for new connection. With this scenario there is a possibility new interface instance will be assigned different MAC address when other hosts compete for EVIC resources.
 

LBFO Bundle Id
   (default disabled) Enabling support for OS provided Load Balancing and Fail Over functionality on adapter level.
   If enabled group ID can be selected from predefined names.

 

Heartbeat interval

   configures interval for VNIC protocol heartbeat messages in milliseconds.
   0 – heartbeats disabled.

Note:
   To take advantage of the features supported by these options, ensure that the Ethernet gateway is also configured appropriately.  For example, if the Payload MTU for a VNIC interface is set to 4000, the MTU at the EVIC module must also be set at least 4000 for the setting to take effect.

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DAT & uDAPL Configuration

In order for DAT/DAPL programs to execute correctly, the 'dat.dll' file must be present in the current directory, %SystemRoot% or in the library search path.

WinOF installation places the dat2.dll and dapl2.dll files in the '%SystemRoot%' folder (a.k.a. \Windows).

The DAT/DAPL configuration file by convention is defined as '%SystemDrive%\DAT\dat.conf'. If the file '%SystemDrive%\DAT\dat.conf' does not exist, a template configuration file will be installed as '%SystemDrive%\DAT\dat.conf'.
In order to preserve existing installations, the dat.conf file is not automatically installed if '%SystemDrive%\DAT\dat.conf' exists.
A sample dat.conf file is always installed as '\Program Files\WinOF\dat.conf '.

The default DAT configuration file specification can be overridden by use of the environment variable DAT_OVERRIDE. Such that 'DAT_OVERRIDE=D:\MyDAT\test.conf' would be a valid override specification.

Within the dat.conf file, the DAPL library specification can be located as the 5th whitespace separated line argument. By default the DAPL library file is installed as %WINDIR%\dapl2.dll'.

Should you choose to relocate the DAPL library file to a folder where whitespace appears in the full library path specification, then the full library file specification must be contained within double-quotes. A side effect of the double-quotes is the library specification is treated as a Windows string which implies the '\' (backslash character) is treated as an 'escape' character.  Hence all backslashes in the library path must be duplicated when enclosed in double-quotes (e.g., "C:\\Programs Files\\WinOF\\dapl.dll").

uDAT/uDAPL version 2.0 runtime libraries are identified as dat2.dll and dapl2.dll, both in %SystemRoot%; see manual for further details.
uDAT/uDAPL version 1.1 runtime libraries identified as dat.dll and dapl.dll, are no longer available as support for v1.1 is deprecated.

 

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SRP (SCSI RDMA Protocol) Driver Installation

The WinOF installer does not install the SRP driver as part of a default installation.  If the SRP feature is selected in the custom installation window, an InfiniBand SRP Miniport driver will be installed; see the device manager view under SCSI and RAID controllers.

The system device 'InfiniBand I/O Unit' (IOU) device is required for correct SRP operation.  The WinOF installer will install/load the IOU driver if the SRP feature is selected.  See the device manager view System Devices --> InfiniBand I/O Unit for conformation of correct IOU driver loading.

In order for the SRP miniport driver installation to complete, an SRP target must be detected by a Subnet Manager running somewhere on the InfiniBand fabric; either a local or remote Subnet Manager works.
When the subnet manager communicates the existence of an SRP target, Windows PNP (Plug-n-Play) will match the IOC device ID with DriverStore installed drives and then will load the IBiou.sys driver along with the ib_srp.sys driver.

An invocation of 'diskmgmt.msc' will display available SRP target disks.

Consult the WinOF manual for further SRP topics including configuring a Linux OFED SRP target.

SRP Driver Uninstall

If the SRP (SCSI RDMA Protocol) driver has been previously installed, then in order to achieve a 'clean' uninstall, the SRP target drive(s) must be released.   Unfortunately the 'offline disk' command is only valid for diskpart (ver 6.0.6001) which is not distributed with Windows Server 2003 or XP.

The consequences of not releasing the SRP target drive(s) are that after the WinOF uninstall reboot there are lingering InfiniBand driver files. These driver files remain because while the SRP target is active they have references, thus when the WinOF uninstall attempts to delete the files the operation fails.


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WinVerbs

WinVerbs is a userspace verbs and communication management interface optimized for the Windows operating system. Its lower interface is designed to support any RDMA based device, including Infiniband and iWarp. Its upper interface is capable of providing a low latency verbs interface, plus supports Microsoft's NetworkDirect Interface, DAPL, and OFED libibverbs interfaces. It consists of
a userspace library and a kernel filter driver.

The WinVerbs and WinMAD drivers load as upper filter drivers for the Infiniband HCA device.
(Open source iWarp drivers for Windows are not yet available.)  A corresponding
WinVerbs.dll and libibmad.dll userspace libraries install as part of the Winverbs driver installation package.
Additionally, a Windows port of the OFED libibverbs library, several test programs and OFED InfiniBand diagnostic utilities are also included.

As of WinOF 2.1, Winverbs components are now integral components of a default WinOF installation.
Although WinVerbs, WinMAD drivers, OFED libraries and utilities are install selectable features, they are automatically included as part of the default WinOF install.

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Known Issues
 

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