Re: InfiniBand BOF @ LSM - topics of interest

[Lars Marowsky-Bree <lmb@suse.de>]

On 2002-05-15T17:36:27,
   Russell Leighton <russ@elegant-software.com> said:

> Lot's of very cool ideas for IB ...not knowing much about IB, but
> being curious and interested, I have a question which may be stupid
> so I apoligize in advance if it is...
> 
> Can we really have these sort of low level IB interactions and have :
>    - security issues addressed, mostly an issue if the devices are over 
> a network w/other devices

The idea is that the IB interconnect is "trusted". Doing very low level kernel
operations cluster-style over a non-trusted link is asking for it; either you
lose security-wise or performance for authentication / encryption _will_ kill
you.

The real interesting question from my side is "availability"; how does the
kernel deal with crashed nodes, loss of link etc? If you already had agreed or
semi-standard interfaces here, we would gladly pick them up.

These generic cluster interfaces are being discussed as part of the Open
Clustering Framework now, and it would be good if a kernel developer reviewed
the discussions regarding the generic event mechanism proposed from a kernel
perspective.


Sincerely,
    Lars Marowsky-Brée <lmb@suse.de>

-- 
Immortality is an adequate definition of high availability for me.
	--- Gregory F. Pfister