Mapping Physical 100 GbE Ports to Their Device Names

Map the physical 100 GbE NICs to their OS-defined device names.

This mapping is critical when configuring the NI-RPDSsc application in the following sections.
  1. Navigate to System Overview Page on the Dell iDRAC by selecting System » Overview from the menu.
    Figure 17. Dell iDRAC System Overview

    Dell iDRAC System Overview page with System menu expanded.

  2. On the System Overview Page, select Network Devices.
    Figure 18. Dell Network Devices

    Dell iDRAC System Overview page showing Network Devices section.

  3. Record the MAC address associated with each slot number. Find this information for each Mellanox Network Adapter (100 GbE NIC) in the Network Devices table: the slot number is listed in the Name column and the MAC address is listed in the Product Name column.
    For dual-port NICs, each slot has a second, hidden MAC address for the second port. The hidden MAC address is an incremented version of the displayed MAC address. For example, if the displayed MAC address for a dual-port ConnectX-6 is XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:FB, the hidden MAC address of the second port is XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:FC.

    The following figure shows a rear-facing view of the data storage server. Each 100 GbE Mellanox NIC is labeled by Slot and by Port. The MAC address listed in the Dell iDRAC is associated with Port 0 on each NIC and the hidden MAC address is associated with Port 1 on each NIC.

    Figure 19. Locating the Slots and Ports on the Data Storage Server

    Rear view of the data storage server.

    Note Slot 3 is attached to NUMA Node 0, and Slot 6 is attached to NUMA Node 1.
  4. Map each MAC address to its OS-assigned device name by executing the following command in the Linux terminal: 
    ip a
    The program returns the following for each NIC:
    [N]: [DEVICE NAME]: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 9000 qdisc mq state UP group default qlen 1000
        link/ether [MAC ADDRESS] brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
        inet6 <IPv6 Address> scope link
           valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    In the following example, the device name is enp165s0f0np0 and the MAC address is XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:FC.
    [N]: enp165s0f0np0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 9000 qdisc mq state UP group default qlen 1000
        link/ether XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:FC brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
        inet6 <IPv6 Address> scope link
           valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever