Once the Mellanox WinOF VPI package is installed, you can perform various modifications to make the driver suitable for your system’s needs.
Changes made to the Windows registry take immediate effect, and no backup is automatically made. Do not edit the Windows registry unless you are confident regarding the changes.
This chapter contains the following sections:
- Ethernet Network
This section describes Ethernet network features and their configuration.
- InfiniBand Network
This section describes InfiniBand network features and their configuration.
- Management
PowerShell Configuration
PowerShell is a task automation and configuration management framework from Microsoft, consisting of a command-line shell and associated scripting language built on the .NET Framework. PowerShell provides full access to COM and WMI, enabling administrators to perform administrative tasks on both local and remote Windows systems as well as WS-Management and CIM enabling management of remote Linux systems and network devices.
- Storage Protocols
Deploying Windows Server 2012 and Above with SMB Direct
The Server Message Block (SMB) protocol is a network file sharing protocol implemented in Microsoft Windows. The set of message packets that defines a particular version of the protocol is called a dialect.
The Microsoft SMB protocol is a client-server implementation and consists of a set of data packets, each containing a request sent by the client or a response sent by the server.
- Virtualization
This section describes virtualization features and their configuration.
- Configuration Using Registry Keys
Mellanox IPoIB and Ethernet drivers use registry keys to control the NIC operations. The registry keys receive default values during the installation of the Mellanox adapters. Most of the parameters are visible in the registry by default, however, certain parameters must be created in order to modify the default behavior of the Mellanox driver.
- Dump Me Now (DMN)
DMN is a bus driver (mlx4_bus.sys) feature that generates dumps and traces from various components, including hardware, firmware and software, upon internally detected issues (by the resiliency sensors), user requests (mlxtool). DMN is unsupported on VFs.
DMN dumps are crucial for offline debugging. Once an issue is hit, the dumps can provide useful information about the NIC's state at the time of the failure. This includes hardware state dumps, firmware traces and various driver component state and resource dumps.
- Software Development Kit (SDK)
Software Development Kit (SDK) is a set of development tools that allows the creation of InfiniBand applications for MLNX_VPI software package.
The SDK package contains header files, libraries, and code examples.
To compile the examples provided with the SDK, you must install Windows Driver Kit (WDK) version 8.1 and higher over Visual Studio 2015.
- Performance Tuning and Counters
This section describes how to modify Windows registry parameters in order to improve performance.
For further information on WinOF performance, please refer to the Performance Tuning Guide for Mellanox Network Adapters.
Please note that modifying the registry incorrectly might lead to serious problems, including the loss of data, system hang, and you may need to reinstall Windows. As such it is recommended to back up the registry on your system before implementing recommendations included in this section. If the modifications you apply lead to serious problems, you will be able to restore the original registry state. For more details about backing up and restoring the registry, please visit www.microsoft.com.
- Resiliency
Device Self-Healing
The Self-Healing feature allows the WinOF driver to recover from various error states. The feature is responsible for:
- Detecting of errors in the driver, firmware or hardware
- RDMA Features
ND2 Provider Control
IND2ProviderControl Interface
Instantiating a NetworkDirect Provider Control
