(Optional) Installing the IB NIC Driver

Scenarios

This section describes how to install the IB NIC driver on a created VM. CentOS 7.4 is used as an example. ARM 64 servers do not support this function.

NOTE:

1. Supported OSs include CentOS 7.3, CentOS 7.4, RedHat 7.3, RedHat 7.4, and SUSE 12 SP3.
2. IB driver version: If version 4.2 is available at the official website, you are advised to install version 4.2. If version 4.2 is unavailable, you are advised to install version 4.3.

Prerequisites

• You have logged in to the VM.
• The IB NIC driver installation package of the specified OS has been uploaded to the VM.

Procedure

1. Download OFED.
   1. Visit http://www.mellanox.com/page/products_dyn?product_family=26&mtag=linux_sw_drivers and click Download.
   2. On the Download page, download the .tgz installation package that matches the VM OS and verify its integrity.

      For example, select the package shown in the red box in the following figure for CentOS 7.4.

      

2. Upload the downloaded OFED installation package to the VM. For details, see step 11 in section Configuring the VM Environment.
3. Run the tar -zxvf xxx (name of the OFED installation package) command to decompress the OFED installation package.
4. Go to the MLNX_OFED_LINUX-4.2-1.2.0.0-RHEL7.4-X86_64 folder and run the following command to install OFED:

   ./mlnxofedinstall

   [root@localhost MLNX_OFED_LINUX-4.2-1.2.0.0-rhel7.4-x86_64]# ./mlnxofedinstall
   Logs dir: /tmp/MLNX_OFED_LINUX.1479.logs
   General log file: /tmp/MLNX_OFED_LINUX.1479.logs/general.log
   Verifying KMP rpms compatibility with target kernel...
   Error: One or more required packages for installing MLNX_OFED_LINUX are missing.
   Please install the missing packages using your Linux distribution Package Management tool.
   Run:
   yum install tcl tk

5. Run the yum install xxx (name of the dependency package) command to install required dependency packages.

   For example, run the yum install tcl tk command as prompted.

6. Run the ./mlnxofedinstall command.

   The installation is successful if information similar to the following is displayed:

   Installation finished successfully.
   
   Preparing...                                    ############################### [100%]
   Updating / installing...
      1:mlnx-fw-updater-4.2-1.2.0.0                ############################### [100%]
   
   Added 'RUN_FW_UPDATER_ONBOOT=no to /etc/infiniband/openib.conf
   ...

7. Run the /etc/init.d/openibd restart command to load the driver.

   [root@localhost MLNX_OFED_LINUX-4.2-1.2.0.0-rhel7.4-x86_64]# /etc/init.d/openibd restart
   Uploading HCA driver:                                      [ OK ]
   Loading HCA driver and Access Layer:                       [ OK ]