Installing VMA

Before you begin, verify you are using a supported operating system and a supported CPU architecture for your operating system. See supported combinations listed in System Requirements and Interoperability.

The current VMA version can work on top of both MLNX_OFED driver stack that supports Ethernet and on a lighter driver stack, MLNX_EN that supports only Ethernet.

The VMA library is delivered as a user-space library, and is called libvma.so.X.Y.Z.

VMA can be installed using one of the following methods:

• As part of NVIDIA® drivers (described on this page)
• Manually (see Installing the VMA Packages)
• Building the sources (see Building VMA From Sources)
• In RHEL 7.x Inbox (see Installing VMA in RHEL 7.x Inbox)

Installing VMA Binary as Part of NVIDIA® Drivers

VMA is a part of the NVIDIA® drivers (MLNX_OFED/MLNX_EN) and it depends on the latest drivers, firmware, libraries, and kernel modules in the package. This installation assures VMA’s correct functionality. The installation package has multiple supported distributions for RHEL, Ubuntu, and others. Pay attention to selecting the suitable distribution for your operating system.

This option suits user who want to install a new VMA version or upgrade to the latest VMA version by overriding the previous one.

NVIDIA® MLNX_OFED Driver for Linux

1. Download the latest MLNX_OFED driver from here.

2. Install the VMA packages. 

   ./mlnxofedinstall --vma

3. Verify the installation completed successfully. 

   /etc/infiniband/info

NVIDIA® MLNX_EN Driver for Linux

1. Download the latest MLNX_EN driver from here.

2. Install the VMA packages. 

   ./install --vma

3. Verify the installation completed successfully. 

   $ cat /etc/infiniband/info
   #!/bin/bash
   
   echo prefix=/usr
   echo Kernel=3.10.0-514.el7.x86_64
   echo
   echo "Configure options: --with-core-mod
   --with-user_mad-mod --with-user_access-mod --with-addr_trans-mod
   --with-mlx4-mod --with-mlx4_en-mod --with-mlx5-mod --with-ipoib-mod
   --with-srp-mod --with-iser-mod --with-isert-mod"
   echo

Starting the Drivers

1. Start the relevant driver (MLNX_OFED/MLNX_EN): 

   /etc/init.d/openibd restart

   or 

   systemctl restart openibd.service

2. Verify that the supported version of firmware is installed. 

   ibv_devinfo