[Lustre-discuss] struggling just get started

[William G Wichser]

I'd like to install Lustre on some hosts (and, yes, I've read the new found issue with the current release with filesystems under 20000 files).  But I'm having a bit of a problem in determining just how to build this thing.

I'm installing under SLES 10.  I'd like to run over the IB interface.

The first item of business appears that I can download a kernel already built for my machine.  Talk on the network seems to indicate that this will not run over an IB interface unless I compile a new kernel from sources.  Yet I don't quite understand why this might be as I don't have toi recompile running over a gigE connection, regardless of the actual interface. Whether it be an Intel or a Broadcom, it doesn't appear to matter and I don't need to recompile against those sources.  Which makes me question why I'd need to recompile when using IB.

It would seem that if I chose TCPoIB that the actual kernel drivers should handle this just fine, running over a TCP stack and the actual device driver should do "the right thing" by making these packets available over the correct physical device.

Now maybe there is a performance issue in doing it this way.  and maybe it just doesn't work that way at all.

So I've read some things and downloaded the sources, both the modified kernel and the lustre-source RPMs.  Now it want me to supply some link to the openib source directory.  How do I determine which OFED was installed with the kernel so I know which sources to download?  Aren't these drivers a part of the kernel now?  And if so, houldn't they actually be already there in the kernel sources?

Thanks for any help anyone can supply with helping me to understand how to even start this build process.

Bill