NFS-RDMA allows an NFS client and server to communicate using an RDMA capable network transport. Benefits of using an RDMA transport include significantly lower CPU utilization and higher throughput. The Linux NFS-RDMA implementation runs on the OpenFabrics RDMA stack. This stack provides the software infrastructure and device driver support for RDMA capable devices. The OFA stack provides a transport neutral API that allows applications to transparently take advantage of RDMA capable transports. In plain english, this means that an application such as NFS-RDMA can run over Infiniband or iWARP on devices from various vendors without change. This extremely powerful capability allows applications to run over IB or iWARP concurrently without change. Please visit The Open Fabrics Alliance for more information on OFA, its charter and it's software. There are a number of ways to get the NFS-RDMA software: |
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| Package | Description |
| kernel.org | Linux 2.6.25 and later include the NFSRDMA client and server. You will also need an updated version of the NFS-UTILS package. General instructions for installing and configuring using the kernel.org kernel and nfs-utils package are available here. |
| Mellanox MTD2000 NFS-RDMA SDK | This one package includes both NFS-RDMA and OFED 1.2 G/A as a single image. You can preview the installation instructions for this kit here here. |
| Source Package | |
| Tom Tucker's Git Repo | This is a git tree based on Linux 2.6.24-rc5. The git URL for this tree is git://linux-nfs.org/~tomtucker/nfs-rdma-dev-2.6.git. This represents the absolute latest code drop for NFS-RDMA. |
| Bruce Fields' Git Repo | This is Bruce Fields' repository and represents an integration of patches from many NFS developers working in Linux. This tree represents the latest server code queued for submission in Linux. |
| Related Publications | |
| RDMA Transport for ONC RPC | This IETF ID proposes a generic protocol for exchanging ONC RPC messages over RDMA capable transports. |
| NFS Direct Data Placement | This IETF ID proposes a method for using ONC RPC for NFS RPC messages. |