B. Installing the NVIDIA Mellanox InfiniBand Drivers

This section describes how to install MLNX_OFED on systems that do not yet have it installed. It is imperative that a validated MLNX_OFED version is used for the RHEL version that the DGX system is running. Note that the “yum update” command that is run before installing the NVIDIA driver will update the system to the latest Red Hat Enterprise Linux version.

  1. Determine which version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is installed on the DGX system. cat /etc/redhat-release
  2. Determine the appropriate MLNX_OFED software bundle to install..

    Refer to index.html#determining-mofed-install-version.

  3. Download the MLNX_OFED software bundle.
    1. Visit the Linux InfiniBand Drivers page, scroll down to the Download wizard, and then click the LTS Download tab.



      NVIDIA EL7 software is tested only with LTS versions of MLNX_OFED.

    2. At the MLNX_OFED Download Center matrix, choose
      • The version to install (you may need to select Archive Versions),
      • RHEL/CentOS (under OS Distribution), and
      • The relevant OS Distribution Version and Architecture.




    3. Click the desired ISO/tgz package.

      To obtain the download link, accept the End User License Agreement.

  4. After downloading the correct MLNX_OFED software bundle, proceed with the installation steps.
    1. Re-visit the MLNX_OFED Software Releases site and select the MLNX_OFED software version you intend to use.
    2. Use the side menu to navigate to Installation->Installing MLNX_OFED, and follow the instructions.
  5. Install nvidia-mlnx-config.
    sudo yum install -y nvidia-mlnx-config
  6. Install kernel headers and development packages for your kernel.

    These are needed for the ensuing DKMS compilation.

    sudo yum install -y kernel-headers-$(uname -r) kernel-devel-$(uname -r)
  7. After installing the MLNX_OFED drivers, install the NVIDIA peer memory module.
    sudo yum install -y nvidia-peer-memory-dkms
  8. Load the nv_peer_mem module, either
    • Manually, by issuing sudo systemctl start nv_peer_mem, or
    • Set up the system to start it automatically on every system boot as follows.
      1. Create a file /etc/modules-load.d/nv-peer-mem.conf with contents "nv_peer_mem".
      2. Issue sudo dracut --force /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img $(uname -r)
      3. Reboot the system.
Note: While in-box drivers may be available, using the in-box drivers is not recommended as they provide lower performance than the official MLNX OFED drivers and they do not support the GPUDirectTM RDMA feature. For more information on configuring the in-box drivers, see the following Red Hat Enterprise Linux documentation: