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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | NOTES | RDMA VERBS | CLIENT OPERATION | SERVER OPERATION | RETURN CODES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
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RDMA_CM(7) Librdmacm Programmer's Manual RDMA_CM(7)
rdma_cm - RDMA communication manager.
#include <rdma/rdma_cma.h>
Used to establish communication over RDMA transports.
The RDMA CM is a communication manager used to setup reliable,
connected and unreliable datagram data transfers. It provides an
RDMA transport neutral interface for establishing connections.
The API concepts are based on sockets, but adapted for queue pair
(QP) based semantics: communication must be over a specific RDMA
device, and data transfers are message based.
The RDMA CM can control both the QP and communication management
(connection setup / teardown) portions of an RDMA API, or only the
communication management piece. It works in conjunction with the
verbs API defined by the libibverbs library. The libibverbs
library provides the underlying interfaces needed to send and
receive data.
The RDMA CM can operate asynchronously or synchronously. The mode
of operation is controlled by the user through the use of the
rdma_cm event channel parameter in specific calls. If an event
channel is provided, an rdma_cm identifier will report its event
data (results of connecting, for example), on that channel. If a
channel is not provided, then all rdma_cm operations for the
selected rdma_cm identifier will block until they complete.
The RDMA CM gives an option to different libibverbs providers to
advertise and use various specific to that provider QP
configuration options. This functionality is called ECE (enhanced
connection establishment).
The rdma_cm supports the full range of verbs available through the
libibverbs library and interfaces. However, it also provides
wrapper functions for some of the more commonly used verbs
funcationality. The full set of abstracted verb calls are:
rdma_reg_msgs - register an array of buffers for sending and
receiving
rdma_reg_read - registers a buffer for RDMA read operations
rdma_reg_write - registers a buffer for RDMA write operations
rdma_dereg_mr - deregisters a memory region
rdma_post_recv - post a buffer to receive a message
rdma_post_send - post a buffer to send a message
rdma_post_read - post an RDMA to read data into a buffer
rdma_post_write - post an RDMA to send data from a buffer
rdma_post_recvv - post a vector of buffers to receive a message
rdma_post_sendv - post a vector of buffers to send a message
rdma_post_readv - post a vector of buffers to receive an RDMA
read
rdma_post_writev - post a vector of buffers to send an RDMA write
rdma_post_ud_send - post a buffer to send a message on a UD QP
rdma_get_send_comp - get completion status for a send or RDMA
operation
rdma_get_recv_comp - get information about a completed receive
This section provides a general overview of the basic operation
for the active, or client, side of communication. This flow
assume asynchronous operation with low level call details shown.
For synchronous operation, calls to rdma_create_event_channel,
rdma_get_cm_event, rdma_ack_cm_event, and
rdma_destroy_event_channel would be eliminated. Abstracted calls,
such as rdma_create_ep encapsulate several of these calls under a
single API. Users may also refer to the example applications for
code samples. A general connection flow would be:
rdma_getaddrinfo
retrieve address information of the destination
rdma_create_event_channel
create channel to receive events
rdma_create_id
allocate an rdma_cm_id, this is conceptually similar to a
socket
rdma_resolve_addr
obtain a local RDMA device to reach the remote address
rdma_get_cm_event
wait for RDMA_CM_EVENT_ADDR_RESOLVED event
rdma_ack_cm_event
ack event
rdma_create_qp
allocate a QP for the communication
rdma_resolve_route
determine the route to the remote address
rdma_get_cm_event
wait for RDMA_CM_EVENT_ROUTE_RESOLVED event
rdma_ack_cm_event
ack event
rdma_connect
connect to the remote server
rdma_get_cm_event
wait for RDMA_CM_EVENT_ESTABLISHED event
rdma_ack_cm_event
ack event
Perform data transfers over connection
rdma_disconnect
tear-down connection
rdma_get_cm_event
wait for RDMA_CM_EVENT_DISCONNECTED event
rdma_ack_cm_event
ack event
rdma_destroy_qp
destroy the QP
rdma_destroy_id
release the rdma_cm_id
rdma_destroy_event_channel
release the event channel
rdma_freeaddrinfo
release the list of rdma_addrinfo structures
rdma_set_local_ece
set desired ECE options
An almost identical process is used to setup unreliable datagram
(UD) communication between nodes. No actual connection is formed
between QPs however, so disconnection is not needed.
Although this example shows the client initiating the disconnect,
either side of a connection may initiate the disconnect.
This section provides a general overview of the basic operation
for the passive, or server, side of communication. A general
connection flow would be:
rdma_create_event_channel
create channel to receive events
rdma_create_id
allocate an rdma_cm_id, this is conceptually similar to a
socket
rdma_bind_addr
set the local port number to listen on
rdma_listen
begin listening for connection requests
rdma_get_cm_event
wait for RDMA_CM_EVENT_CONNECT_REQUEST event with a new
rdma_cm_id
rdma_create_qp
allocate a QP for the communication on the new rdma_cm_id
rdma_accept
accept the connection request
rdma_ack_cm_event
ack event
rdma_get_cm_event
wait for RDMA_CM_EVENT_ESTABLISHED event
rdma_ack_cm_event
ack event
Perform data transfers over connection
rdma_get_cm_event
wait for RDMA_CM_EVENT_DISCONNECTED event
rdma_ack_cm_event
ack event
rdma_disconnect
tear-down connection
rdma_destroy_qp
destroy the QP
rdma_destroy_id
release the connected rdma_cm_id
rdma_destroy_id
release the listening rdma_cm_id
rdma_destroy_event_channel
release the event channel
rdma_get_remote_ece
get ECe options sent by the client
rdma_set_local_ece
set desired ECE options
= 0 success
= -1 error - see errno for more details
Most librdmacm functions return 0 to indicate success, and a -1
return value to indicate failure. If a function operates
asynchronously, a return value of 0 means that the operation was
successfully started. The operation could still complete in
error; users should check the status of the related event. If the
return value is -1, then errno will contain additional information
regarding the reason for the failure.
Prior versions of the library would return -errno and not set
errno for some cases related to ENOMEM, ENODEV, ENODATA, EINVAL,
and EADDRNOTAVAIL codes. Applications that want to check these
codes and have compatibility with prior library versions must
manually set errno to the negative of the return code if it is <
-1.
rdma_accept(3), rdma_ack_cm_event(3), rdma_bind_addr(3),
rdma_connect(3), rdma_create_ep(3), rdma_create_event_channel(3),
rdma_create_id(3), rdma_create_qp(3), rdma_dereg_mr(3),
rdma_destroy_ep(3), rdma_destroy_event_channel(3),
rdma_destroy_id(3), rdma_destroy_qp(3), rdma_disconnect(3),
rdma_event_str(3), rdma_free_devices(3), rdma_freeaddrinfo(3),
rdma_getaddrinfo(3), rdma_get_cm_event(3), rdma_get_devices(3),
rdma_get_dst_port(3), rdma_get_local_addr(3),
rdma_get_peer_addr(3), rdma_get_recv_comp(3),
rdma_get_remote_ece(3), rdma_get_request(3),
rdma_get_send_comp(3), rdma_get_src_port(3),
rdma_join_multicast(3), rdma_leave_multicast(3), rdma_listen(3),
rdma_migrate_id(3), rdma_notify(3), rdma_post_read(3)
rdma_post_readv(3), rdma_post_recv(3), rdma_post_recvv(3),
rdma_post_send(3), rdma_post_sendv(3), rdma_post_ud_send(3),
rdma_post_write(3), rdma_post_writev(3), rdma_reg_msgs(3),
rdma_reg_read(3), rdma_reg_write(3), rdma_reject(3),
rdma_resolve_addr(3), rdma_resolve_route(3),
rdma_get_remote_ece(3), rdma_set_option(3), mckey(1),
rdma_client(1), rdma_server(1), rping(1), ucmatose(1), udaddy(1)
This page is part of the rdma-core (RDMA Core Userspace Libraries
and Daemons) project. Information about the project can be found
at ⟨https://github.com/linux-rdma/rdma-core⟩. If you have a bug
report for this manual page, send it to
linux-rdma@vger.kernel.org. This page was obtained from the
project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/linux-rdma/rdma-core.git⟩ on 2025-08-11. (At
that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
the repository was 2025-08-04.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
librdmacm 2010-07-19 RDMA_CM(7)
Pages that refer to this page: cmtime(1), mckey(1), rcopy(1), rdma_client(1), rdma_server(1), rdma_xclient(1), rdma_xserver(1), riostream(1), rping(1), rstream(1), ucmatose(1), udaddy(1), udpong(1), rdma_connect(3), rdma_create_ep(3), rdma_create_event_channel(3), rdma_create_id(3), rdma_dereg_mr(3), rdma_get_recv_comp(3), rdma_get_remote_ece(3), rdma_get_send_comp(3), rdma_init_qp_attr(3), rdma_listen(3), rdma_migrate_id(3), rdma_post_read(3), rdma_post_readv(3), rdma_post_recv(3), rdma_post_recvv(3), rdma_post_send(3), rdma_post_sendv(3), rdma_post_ud_send(3), rdma_post_write(3), rdma_post_writev(3), rdma_reg_msgs(3), rdma_reg_read(3), rdma_reg_write(3), rdma_set_local_ece(3), ibacm(8)