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OVERVIEW
The PCI-E Non-transparent bridge hardware is in general N-N PCI-E bus connecting at least 2 systems. When configured, writes to the device's PCI mapped memory will be mirrored to a memory buffer on the remote system. The maximum size of this "memory window" is configured either via BIOS (Intel/AMD) or via EEPROM firmware or via run-time register settings (IDT/Switchtec/PLX). Number of PCI-E lanes used in the bus can also be configured via BIOS for hardware like Intel/AMD. The NTB Linux driver uses this communication infrastructure as a method to transfer data from one system to the other. A number of virtual device drivers has been and will be developed to take advantage of NTB's communication and make it more usable to end users. For example, a virtual network driver has been developed to transfer Ethernet frames, and thus TCP/IP packets, to the remote system. This enables the user to run network applications, such as NFS or DRBD, and communicate with the remote system.
NTB hardware:
Intel® processors with integrated NTB:
- Intel® Xeon® Processor C5500/C3500 Series
- Intel® Xeon® Processor E5 Series
- Intel® Xeon® Processor E5v2 Series
- Intel® Xeon® Processor E5v3 Series
- Intel® Atom™ Processor S1200 series
Intel® systems/motherboards with NTB enabled:
- Intel® Server Board S2600CP Family (confirmed) HOWTO
- Intel® Server System H2312JFJR (requires a non-standard PCIE riser)
- Intel® Server Board S2600JF Family (requires a non-standard PCIE riser)
- Trenton Systems Board JXT6966 (unconfirmed)
IDT® PCIe switches with available NTB function:
- IDT® 89HPES8NT2, 89HPES16NT2, 89HPES16NT2, 89HPES12NT3, 89HPES24NT3 series (unsupported at the moment)
- IDT® 89HPES24NT6, 89HPES32NT8, 89HPES12NT12, 89HPES16NT16, 89HPES24NT24, 89HPES32NT24 series (supports up to 8 NTB endpoints)
IDT® system boards with NTB enabled:
NTB Hardware documentation
- Intel® Xeon® Processor C5500/C3500 Series Non-Transparent Bridge
- IDT® Inter-domain/System Interconnect Switches
How do I tell if I have one?
`lspci` should something an endpoint, similar to:
00:03.0 Bridge: Intel Corporation Sandy Bridge Non-Transparent Bridge (rev 06)
03:00.1 PCI bridge: Integrated Device Technology, Inc. [IDT] PES32NT8AG2 (rev 02)
If you don't see this and have one of the above processors/chip, then it is most likely either not enabled in the BIOS or via chip settings.