Mellanox Connectx-3 w/ ESXi questions

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AveryFreeman

consummate homelabber
Mar 17, 2017
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Hey,

new to Mellanox cards, RDMA in general. Wasn't sure what really to expect with these, but knew they'd be faster than current 82599-based network

I've got 3 hypervisors and was going to use these for storage backend, sharing between the 3 probably gluster, or maybe 2 with drbd (still haven't decided - probably not ceph, not enough machines).

Anyway, ESXi 7.0 reports these vibs loaded:

Code:
nmlx4-core                     3.19.16.8-2vmw.701.0.0.16850804       VMW      VMwareCertified   2021-02-05
nmlx4-en                       3.19.16.8-2vmw.701.0.0.16850804       VMW      VMwareCertified   2021-02-05
nmlx4-rdma                     3.19.16.8-2vmw.701.0.0.16850804       VMW      VMwareCertified   2021-02-05
ntg3                           4.1.5.0-0vmw.701.0.0.16850804         VMW      VMwareCertified
Questions:

  1. ESXi says RoCE v1 possible but no RoCE v2 or nvme-of. Is RoCE v2 possible w/ connectx-3 cards, or am I hardware-limited to v1?
  2. I am using QSFP+ active fiber, and I flashed QCBT(10/40 en) cards to FCBT (40/46 en/ib), but if ESXi no longer supports IB does that mean I can't use the 56Gb IB unless I pass through the card to a VM? If I plan to use these through ESXi vNICs, should I have just left them as QCBTs (10/40Gb en)?
  3. Where do I find the FCBT 2.42 5000 firmware that comes in a TGZ file, so I can cross-flash? There's a link to 2.40 5030 in the forums, but I have no idea where to find the TGZ for latest version - I could only find the .bin file on the Mellanox website, and when I tried to sub 2.42 5000 for 2.40 5030 on link in forums, file not found and .htaccess index off on their server.
 

i386

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Mar 18, 2016
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ESXi says RoCE v1 possible but no RoCE v2 or nvme-of. Is RoCE v2 possible w/ connectx-3 cards, or am I hardware-limited to v1?
cx-3 only support roce v1, cx-3 pro and newer support roce v1 & v2
Where do I find the FCBT 2.42 5000 firmware that comes in a TGZ file, so I can cross-flash?
At some point mellanox stopped releasing the sources that allowed to create custom firmware. Use the binary from mellanox for flashing to the vanilla version.
 
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AveryFreeman

consummate homelabber
Mar 17, 2017
413
54
28
42
Near Seattle
averyfreeman.com
cx-3 only support roce v1, cx-3 pro and newer support roce v1 & v2

At some point mellanox stopped releasing the sources that allowed to create custom firmware. Use the binary from mellanox for flashing to the vanilla version.
Shit, re: RoCE v1/v2 I didn't see that in the datasheets, I knew I should have gotten the pros... welp, next time... I'm sure the cx-4s will be dirt cheap in a year or two, so I'll wait a bit and get those

Re: flashing w/ bin only - how do I crossflash, then? They're hardware QCBTs but I flashed them FCBT...
 

i386

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Mar 18, 2016
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I'm sure the cx-4s will be dirt cheap in a year or two
There are single port 100gbe cx-4 for ~$120 on ebay. It's "dirt cheap" for qsfp28/sfp28/current stuff :D
They're hardware QCBTs but I flashed them FCBT
It's the same asic, the firmware enables/disables certain speeds.
how do I crossflash, then?
See this post:
flint -d <device> -i mlnx_firmware.bin -allow_psid_change burn
 

AveryFreeman

consummate homelabber
Mar 17, 2017
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There are single port 100gbe cx-4 for ~$120 on ebay. It's "dirt cheap" for qsfp28/sfp28/current stuff :D

It's the same asic, the firmware enables/disables certain speeds.

See this post:
Ah, the process I was following was using a .mlx file to compile a new .bin with a name specific to the OEM vendor. Let's see if I can find it...:

OK, this isn't the one I was reading, it's far more detailed. I'll have to go over this one.


This part is what I'm referring to, though:

Code:
mlxburn -fw fw-ConnectX3-rel.mlx -conf MCX312A-XCB_A2-A6.ini -wrimage mlnx_firmware.bin
I'm glad they're fairly easy to work with. I guess one is an EMC and the other is a Mellanox, but they look exactly the same to my eye, I couldn't tell you which is which.
 

AveryFreeman

consummate homelabber
Mar 17, 2017
413
54
28
42
Near Seattle
averyfreeman.com
There are single port 100gbe cx-4 for ~$120 on ebay. It's "dirt cheap" for qsfp28/sfp28/current stuff :D

It's the same asic, the firmware enables/disables certain speeds.

See this post:
OK I went to that post, it's the same process I was following - requires the TGZ for custom firmware with the .mlx or .ini files. Looks like 2.40.5030 was the last release as detailed in thread from 3 years ago :/


NVM, I am just burning the 2.42 .bin file I downloaded from Mellanox without going through any of the other steps - looks like it's going to work ...

... yep, I flashed a QCBT to an FCBT, it says FW version is 2.42.5000 and the PSID went from 1090110018 to 1090110019...
 
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