NAME

       ibacm_prov - InfiniBand communication management assistant provider interface

SYNOPSIS

       #include <infiniband/acm_prov.h>

DESCRIPTION

       The ibacm provider interface provides a plugin interface that allows a vendor to implement
       proprietary solutions to support scalable  address  and  route  resolution  services  over
       InfiniBand.

       To add a provider to the ibacm core service, the provider must

       1. be implemented as a shared library;

       2. be installed under a configured directory, eg., /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/ibacm;

       3  export a function provider_query() that returns a pointer to its provider info
              and version info.

       The prototype of provider_query function is defined below:

       int provider_query(struct acm_provider **info, uint32_t *version);

       This function should return a pointer to its provider structure:

       struct acm_provider {
            size_t    size;
            uint32_t  version;
            char      *name;
            int  (*open_device)(const struct acm_device *device,
                      void **dev_context);
            void (*close_device)(void *dev_context);
            int  (*open_port)(const struct acm_port *port,
                      void *dev_context, void **port_context);
            void (*close_port)(void *port_context);
            int  (*open_endpoint)(const struct acm_endpoint *endpoint,
                      void *port_context, void **ep_context);
            void (*close_endpoint)(void *ep_context);
            int  (*add_address)(const struct acm_address *addr, void *ep_context,
                      void **addr_context);
            void (*remove_address)(void *addr_context);
            int  (*resolve)(void *addr_context, struct acm_msg *msg, uint64_t id);
            int  (*query)(void *addr_context, struct acm_msg *msg, uint64_t id);
            int  (*handle_event)(void *port_context, enum ibv_event_type type);
            void (*query_perf)(void *ep_context, uint64_t *values, uint8_t *cnt);
       };

       The size and version fields provide a way to detect version compatibility.  When a port is
       assigned to the provider,  the  ibacm  core  will  call  the  open/add_address  functions;
       Similarly,   when   a   port   is   down   or   re-assigned   to   another  provider,  the
       close/remove_address functions will be invoked to release resources.  The ibacm core  will
       centralize  the  management  of events for each device and events not handled by the ibacm
       core will be forwarded to the relevant port  through  the  handle_event()  function.   The
       resolve()  function  will be called to resolve a destination name into a path record.  The
       performance of the provider for each endpoint can be queried by calling perf_query().

       To share a configuration file, the path for  the  ibacm  configuration  file  is  exported
       through  the variable opts_file. Each loaded provider can open this configuration file and
       parse the contents related to its own operation.  Non-related sections should be ignored.

       Some helper functions are also exported by the ibacm core. For example, the acm_log define
       (or  the  acm_write() function) can be used to log messages into ibacm's log file (default
       /var/log/ibacm.log).  For details, refer to the acm_prov.h file.

NOTES

       A provider should always set the version in its provider info structure as  the  value  of
       the  define  ACM_PROV_VERSION  at  the  time  the  provider is implemented.  Never set the
       version to ACM_PROV_VERSION itself as the  define  may  be  changed  over  time  when  the
       provider  interface is changed, unless the provider itself is placed in ibacm source tree.
       This is to avoid the version problem when the old provider implementation is built against
       a new acm_prov.h file.  The ibacm will always check the version of the provider at loading
       time.

SEE ALSO

       ib_acme(1), ibacm(1), ibacm(7)