user_mad.txt

USERSPACE MAD ACCESS

Device files

  Each port of each InfiniBand device has a "umad" device and an
  "issm" device attached.  For example, a two-port HCA will have two
  umad devices and two issm devices, while a switch will have one
  device of each type (for switch port 0).

Creating MAD agents

  A MAD agent can be created by filling in a struct ib_user_mad_reg_req
  and then calling the IB_USER_MAD_REGISTER_AGENT ioctl on a file
  descriptor for the appropriate device file.  If the registration
  request succeeds, a 32-bit id will be returned in the structure.
  For example:

	struct ib_user_mad_reg_req req = { /* ... */ };
	ret = ioctl(fd, IB_USER_MAD_REGISTER_AGENT, (char *) &req);
        if (!ret)
		my_agent = req.id;
	else
		perror("agent register");

  Agents can be unregistered with the IB_USER_MAD_UNREGISTER_AGENT
  ioctl.  Also, all agents registered through a file descriptor will
  be unregistered when the descriptor is closed.

  2014 -- a new registration ioctl is now provided which allows additional
       fields to be provided during registration.
       Users of this registration call are implicitly setting the use of
       pkey_index (see below).

Receiving MADs

  MADs are received using read().  The receive side now supports
  RMPP. The buffer passed to read() must be at least one
  struct ib_user_mad + 256 bytes. For example:

  If the buffer passed is not large enough to hold the received
  MAD (RMPP), the errno is set to ENOSPC and the length of the
  buffer needed is set in mad.length.

  Example for normal MAD (non RMPP) reads:
	struct ib_user_mad *mad;
	mad = malloc(sizeof *mad + 256);
	ret = read(fd, mad, sizeof *mad + 256);
	if (ret != sizeof mad + 256) {
		perror("read");
		free(mad);
	}

  Example for RMPP reads:
	struct ib_user_mad *mad;
	mad = malloc(sizeof *mad + 256);
	ret = read(fd, mad, sizeof *mad + 256);
	if (ret == -ENOSPC)) {
		length = mad.length;
		free(mad);
		mad = malloc(sizeof *mad + length);
		ret = read(fd, mad, sizeof *mad + length);
	}
	if (ret < 0) {
		perror("read");
		free(mad);
	}

  In addition to the actual MAD contents, the other struct ib_user_mad
  fields will be filled in with information on the received MAD.  For
  example, the remote LID will be in mad.lid.

  If a send times out, a receive will be generated with mad.status set
  to ETIMEDOUT.  Otherwise when a MAD has been successfully received,
  mad.status will be 0.

  poll()/select() may be used to wait until a MAD can be read.

Sending MADs

  MADs are sent using write().  The agent ID for sending should be
  filled into the id field of the MAD, the destination LID should be
  filled into the lid field, and so on.  The send side does support
  RMPP so arbitrary length MAD can be sent. For example:

	struct ib_user_mad *mad;

	mad = malloc(sizeof *mad + mad_length);

	/* fill in mad->data */

	mad->hdr.id  = my_agent;	/* req.id from agent registration */
	mad->hdr.lid = my_dest;		/* in network byte order... */
	/* etc. */

	ret = write(fd, &mad, sizeof *mad + mad_length);
	if (ret != sizeof *mad + mad_length)
		perror("write");

Transaction IDs

  Users of the umad devices can use the lower 32 bits of the
  transaction ID field (that is, the least significant half of the
  field in network byte order) in MADs being sent to match
  request/response pairs.  The upper 32 bits are reserved for use by
  the kernel and will be overwritten before a MAD is sent.

P_Key Index Handling

  The old ib_umad interface did not allow setting the P_Key index for
  MADs that are sent and did not provide a way for obtaining the P_Key
  index of received MADs.  A new layout for struct ib_user_mad_hdr
  with a pkey_index member has been defined; however, to preserve binary
  compatibility with older applications, this new layout will not be used
  unless one of IB_USER_MAD_ENABLE_PKEY or IB_USER_MAD_REGISTER_AGENT2 ioctl's
  are called before a file descriptor is used for anything else.

  In September 2008, the IB_USER_MAD_ABI_VERSION will be incremented
  to 6, the new layout of struct ib_user_mad_hdr will be used by
  default, and the IB_USER_MAD_ENABLE_PKEY ioctl will be removed.

Setting IsSM Capability Bit

  To set the IsSM capability bit for a port, simply open the
  corresponding issm device file.  If the IsSM bit is already set,
  then the open call will block until the bit is cleared (or return
  immediately with errno set to EAGAIN if the O_NONBLOCK flag is
  passed to open()).  The IsSM bit will be cleared when the issm file
  is closed.  No read, write or other operations can be performed on
  the issm file.

/dev files

  To create the appropriate character device files automatically with
  udev, a rule like

    KERNEL=="umad*", NAME="infiniband/%k"
    KERNEL=="issm*", NAME="infiniband/%k"

  can be used.  This will create device nodes named

    /dev/infiniband/umad0
    /dev/infiniband/issm0

  for the first port, and so on.  The InfiniBand device and port
  associated with these devices can be determined from the files

    /sys/class/infiniband_mad/umad0/ibdev
    /sys/class/infiniband_mad/umad0/port

  and

    /sys/class/infiniband_mad/issm0/ibdev
    /sys/class/infiniband_mad/issm0/port