windows 8 pro

Infrastructure & Networking Software And Drivers WinOF Driver
1

The whitepaper, "Deploying Windows Server® 2012 with SMB Direct over

Mellanox InfiniBand End-to-End Interconnect Solutions"

describes a server that’s windows 2012 and a client that’s 2012.

Is it possible to use a windows 2012 server and a windows 8 pro client?

Thanks,

Greg

2

Following the directions from the whitepaper on a windows 8 Pro client, In powershell:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-NetOffloadGlobalSetting | Select NetworkDirect

NetworkDirect

Disabled

How do I install Network Direct for Windows 8Pro? is it possible?

3

Are you installing the current IB drivers for Windows 8/2012? Those will update the firmware on the card, as well as give you the driver to support smb direct. Also, this will only work on ConnectX 3 cards, the ConnectX 2 are not supported on Win 8/2012.

Get-SmbClientNetworkInterface should tell you if RSS & RDMA are available

4

I’ve installed MLNX_VPI_WinOF-4_40_0_All_win8_x64

The cards are brand new, so they didn’t update firmware during the install.

The cards are ConnectX3 VPI.

I’m looking at:

Set-NetOffloadGlobalSetting (NetTCPIP) | Microsoft Docs Set-NetOffloadGlobalSetting (NetTCPIP) | Microsoft Docs

and it says that:

-NetworkDirect

Modifies the Network Direct (RDMA) global state on the computer. This is a server only setting. The acceptable values for this parameter are:

– Enabled: NetworkDirect is globally enabled.

– Disabled: NetworkDirect is globally disabled.

The default value is Enabled.

5

what is Get-SmbClientNetworkInterface telling you, and you may want to try re-installing the drivers, but as Administrator, I have had issues with the latest installer not elevating, and not doing the firmware update. I’ll put a card in one of my Win 8 machines and validate this, I have been running this in Servers mostly.

6

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-SmbClientNetworkInterface

Interface Index RSS Capable RDMA Capable Speed IpAddresses Friendly

20 False False 0 bps {fe80::b942:5ced… Ethernet

16 False False 100 Kbps {fe80::ffff:ffff… Local Are

13 False False 0 bps {fe80::38af:caea… Ethernet

14 False False 0 bps {fe80::5efe:192… isatap.ho

19 True False 54 Gbps {fe80::6576:b81a… Ethernet

15 False False 0 bps {fe80::5efe:192… isatap.{2

12 True False 1 Gbps {fe80::b9b9:a296… Ethernet

7

I wonder if RDMA will make its way to client side?

8

I just loaded a card up in a Win 8 Client… I get the same thing RSS True but RDMA False. With the name changes from Beta to Prod of Windows, it is almost impossible to search for information on Win 8 Client and this topic. Maybe someone from Mellanox can chime in on if RDMA is supported in the client OS.

9

I’ve had the same search results!

10

RDMA is a Server only feature… So the server will use RDMA but the Windows 8 Client will not. I was incorrect in my earlier comment that RDMA worked in Windows 8 Client, at least from the client side.

11

Yes, Both OS’s have the RDMA and IB Support. - Update - Server 2012 supports RDMA with SMB Direct and Network Direct, the Windows 8 Client OS does support IB however.