Re: Can RDMA testing be done with one system?

On Tue, Jul 28, 2026 at 6:47=E2=80=AFPM Vin=C3=ADcius Ferr=C3=A3o
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
> I=E2=80=99ve answered too fast.
>
> When you say a Mellanox NIC you wanted to say an Infiniband Card, correct=
? If yes the last email still applies.
>
> If we are running RoCEv2, it doesn=E2=80=99t matter the vendor. Mellanox =
cards, depending on the model, can also operate in Ethernet Mode and some o=
f them are ONLY Ethernet. Those will support RDMA with RoCEv2.

Well, for FreeBSD, I don't know of any non-Mellanox NIC with a driver
that does RoCEv2 (Chelsio does iWarp, I think?).

The only other one that might do RoCEv2 are Intel 8nn NICs, but I'd rather
start with two Mellanox ones. (And I don't know if there are any Intel 8nn =
NICs
in the Netperf cluster.)

I assume the two machines in the Netperf cluster are wired into
Ethernet switches
and, as such, will use RoCEv2?


rick
>
> You cannot mix IB and Ethernet, even if the higher transport layer is RDM=
A.
>
> In the past other companies like QLogic had IB cards. Today is only Mella=
nox=E2=80=A6 I mean=E2=80=A6 NVIDIA now.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On 28 Jul 2026, at 22:39, Rick Macklem <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > =EF=BB=BFHi,
> >
> > I have assumed that a Mellanox NIC will only do RDMA
> > to another system with a Mellanox NIC.
> >
> > Is that correct or is there a way to do RDMA testing
> > with a single system with a single NIC?
> >
> > Thanks for any info, rick
> >