...

N/A

Hardware Requirements

N/A

Software Prerequisites

• MLNX_OFED

• Note

  • Use automatic FM update during MLNX_OFED installation ONLY if the current BlueField FW version is 18.24.1000 (GA) or above. In case its older, manually burn the FW after MLNX_OFED installation.
  • In case you plan to run DPDK on the host itself, install MLNX_OFED with "--dpdk --upstream-libs" flags
  • The "bluefield" flag is not required in some of the MLNX_OFED versions and OS releases

Database Prerequisites

...

N/A

Other Installation Requirements

...

N/A

Installation High-Level Overview      

SmartNIC Server Preparations

• Install useful packages:

  yum install -y screen minicom net-tools tcpdump usbutils net-utils sshpass iptables-services fio epel-release iperf wget git unzip perl pciutils lsof tcl libxml2-python tk unbound gtk2 atk cairo gcc-gfortran tcsh nvme-cli

    

• Install MLNX_OFED with the mentioned flags below.

  tar -xzvf MLNX_OFED_LINUX-4.4-2.5.11.0-rhel7.5-x86_64.tgz cd MLNX_OFED_LINUX-4.4-2.5.11.0-rhel7.5-x86_64 ./mlnxofedinstall --with-nvmf --bluefield --without-fw-update

  
  

      Note

• Use automatic FM update during MLNX_OFED installation ONLY if the current BlueField FW version is 18.24.1000 (GA) or above. In case its older, manually burn the FW after MLNX_OFED installation.
• In case you plan to run DPDK on the host itself, install MLNX_OFED with "--dpdk --upstream-libs" flags
• The "bluefield" flag is not required in some of the MLNX_OFED versions and OS releases

   Enable SR-IOV on FW (Optional):

  mlxconfig -y -d /dev/mst/mt41682_pciconf0 s SRIOV_EN=1 mlxconfig -y -d /dev/mst/mt41682_pciconf0 s NUM_OF_VFS=8

  
  

• Uncomment the following line in /etc/modprobe.d/rshim.conf to set the default RShim access method to the SmartNIC:

  options rshim backend_driver=rshim_usb

  
  

  Note

  1. When this line is commented, the first available driver will be used.
  2. When the mini USB cable is not used, the driver should be rshim_pcie

  
  

• Create a file named ifcfg-tmfifo_net0 under /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ directory, with the following content:

• ifcfg-tmfifo_net0 is the network interface used for IP communication between the x86 host and the SmartNIC with rshim_net driver.

• Enable ip forwarding and set a NAT rule to allow the SmartNIC OS to communicate with the outer world via the host management interface:

  sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_forward=1 systemctl enable iptables systemctl start iptables iptables -F iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o <host_mgmt_interfac> -j MASQUERADE service iptables save

  
  

• Disable Firewall and Network Manager services

  systemctl disable firewalld.service systemctl disable NetworkManager

  
  

• Reboot the server. Once server is up again, run some configuration sanity tests:
  

  To verify BlueField FW version:

  mlxfwmanager --query

  
  

   To verify RShim modules are loaded:

  lsmod | grep -i rshim

  
  

  To identify the backend active RShim driver:

  cat /dev/rshim0/misc

  
  

  To verify the NAT rule for SmartNIC communication with the outer world:

  iptables -L -n -t nat

  
  

• Download the BlueField Quick Start bfb image:  https://mellanox.box.com/s/q44f501xq1e29yb1bjpsb9vzgqs89a76

Place the bfb image on the host and load it on the BlueField SmartNIC using the following command:

...