IBM branded ConnectX3 40 GBit QSFP (MT26428) on ESXi 6.7 CU3

Hi, I have a question about a Mellanox ConnectX3 Infiniband card.

It appears that this card has the same hardware than a Mellanox ConnectX3 QSFP single port.

ConnectX-3 Pro EN NIC; 40GigE; single-port QSFP (MCX313A-BCC)

But VMware doesn’t load it, it only shows a PCI device.

After lot of searching I found that the “VMware Inbox driver” seems not to load because IBM or Mellanox decided to give it a device ID which is not on the HCL of VMware.

https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/detail.php?deviceCategory=io&productid=44553&deviceCategory=io&details=1&partner=55&releases=485,428,427,369&keyword=connectx-3&deviceTypes=6&page=1&display_interval=10&sortColumn=Partner&sortOrder=Asc

0x1007 would be appropriate for the original Mellanox product, but the card sold as IBM FRU 46M2205 shows the device ID 0x673c (also as sub device ID) but the vendor is 0x15b3 - correct.

actually I don’t know the reason why the driver doesn’t load and the /var/syslog.log has tenthousands of entries during a boot… so my first question is

  • how can I force loading the driver for finding it’s response message in the last tail of syslog?

Some days in the past I hacked inf files under Windows to forece a device driver to accept a different device ID, and that worked fine when it’s a scanner or printer who’se capabilites are identical but the manufacturer wants it’s customers to buy new hardware by not supporting the compatible device in it’s newest Windows 7 / 10 driver.

And my second question:

  • Is it possible to hack this “wrong” device ID somehow into the driver or change it on the device itself? I already had to add the --no-sig-check to the esxcli install command because the signature of the MFT and the other tools from Mellanox has expired.

Apparently there is a custom build Lenovn ISO for ESXI 6.7 but I don’t really want to reinsatll my main Lab box… also it appears that Lenovo hasn’t considered ESXI 6.7 as OS for the IBM connectX3

Abount my background… I do sort of tech support for performance troubleshooting in an CAE application that often runs against some bottlenecks in virtualized or physical environmnets, and want to rebuild some customer scenarios in a lab with sort of limited budget.

ESXi I do for 20 years, more on top level but I am also aware on the command line and have Linux experience too (Redhat, Suse which shares lot of tools and structures with ESX)

I studied lot of pages about Mellanox Infiniband in ESX and some people said OMG, pls don’t use the “foreign branded” cards for HP or IBM, take the original ones. Something I didn’t know before I got some IBM branded ConnectX3 (obviously the pro) in my hands.

Hello Andreas,

Thank you for posting your inquiry on the NVIDIA Networking Community.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to change the device id of the adapter. As this is an IBM branded Mellanox OEM adapter, all the support needs to be provided by IBM.

Thank you and regards,

~NVIDIA Networking Technical Support

thanks for your answer… will try my best with Lenovo / IBM or find a way to make the inbox driver accept the OEM device ID.