Projects: Linux NFSv4 RDMA/Sessions Client

Overview

The principal deliverable of this project is an open-source, freely available Linux-based NFS client that uses RDMA for ONC RPC transfers and implements NFSv4 session enhancements. The deliverable provides for the common RDMA transport under RPC enabling all versions of NFS and the NFS Version 4 extensions to further exploit performance.

Specs

• draft-ietf-nfsv4-sess-02.txt NFSv4 Session Extensions (February, 2005)
• draft-ietf-rddp-rdmap-05.txt RDMA Protocol Specification
• draft-ietf-nfsv4-rpcrdma-01.txt RDMA Transport for ONC RPC (May 2003)
• draft-ietf-nfsv4-nfsdirect-01.txt NFS Direct Data Placement (May 2003)
• rfc3530.txt Network File System (NFS) version 4 Protocol (April 2003)

References

• NFS/RDMA Linux Client (Tom Talpey, Connectathon 2004)
• TCP offload is a dumb idea whose time has come (Jeffrey Mogul, HotOS IX)
• The Direct Access File System (Tom Talpey, FAST '03)
• NFS over RDMA (Brent Callaghan, FAST '02)

Project Sponsor

• Network Appliance

Presentations

• html ppt NFS/RDMA over IB under Linux (First OpenIB Workshop, Sonoma, February 2005)
• pdf ppt NFSv4.1 Sessions: Design and Linux Server Implementation Experiences (Connectathon, San Jose, March 2005)

Documents

• NFSv3 Linux RDMA Server Design

Code

• Server Stage 1 (combined patch for linux-2.6.9)
• Current Snapshot: Stage 2 is essentially complete. Connectathon basic suite passes and RDMA transport teardown is functional. All that remains for genuine stage 2 compliance is handling of multiple credits.

  Development has now moved to a 2.6.12.5 base utilizing an iWARP kDAPL provided by Ammasso. This is an implementation of kDAPL 1.2, therefore it requires the newer header files.

• DAT 1.1 and 1.2 Header Files to install in linux/include/
• Mellanox IBGD driver software
• Ammasso iWARP kDAPL provider software. Note: this is pre-release software with some special features to enable operation with the NFSoRDMA code.
• Sessions patches for 2.6.14. These require Chuck Lever's transport switch patch. There are two: one for basic sessions, and one to add backchannel support to the client.

The assumption is that anyone interested in this code is quite involved in the world of RDMA and linux kernel development. If you would like to use this code and need any additional instructions to get started, please contact us.

Personnel

Charles Antonelli	Assistant Research Scientist, CITI, project management
Jon Bauman	Technologist, CITI
George Dunlap	Graduate Student Research Assistant, CITI