ethcabletest(8)

✨ ethcabletest ✨

okay bestie, welcome to ethcabletest(8) — yes that's the whole manual name, section 8, we're in sysadmin territory now 💅

This is the one that kicks off (or shuts down) Cable Bit Error Rate stress tests for Network Interface Card to switch (NIC-SW) links. So like, you're literally stressing the cable between the NIC and the switch and seeing how it holds up. main character energy for your fabric, fr fr 🔥

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🌸 NAME 🌸

ethcabletest

Initiates or stops Cable Bit Error Rate stress tests for Network Interface Card to switch (NIC-SW) links.

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🎀 Syntax 🎀

ethcabletest [-p  plane] [-f  hostfile] [-h  'hosts'] [-n  numprocs]
[start|stop] ...

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💖 Options 💖

• --help — prints the full help text. your lil "wait what does this do again" button 🫶
• -p plane — says which fabric plane the test is gonna run on. important: that plane has to be defined and enabled in the Mgt config file, no cap, or it's not gonna work. if you don't pick one, the default is just the first enabled plane. easy.
• -f hostfile — the file with the hosts you want in the NIC-SW test. heads up, this one overrides the HostsFiles defined in the Mgt config file for that corresponding plane. it said what it said 😤
• -h hosts — just hand it the list of hosts directly, right there in the command. no file needed bestie.
• -n numprocs — how many processes per host for the NIC-SW test. default is 3.
• start — starts the NIC-SW tests. go go go 🚀
• stop — stops the NIC-SW tests. okay that's enough, we're done here 💀

⚠️ the NIC-SW cable test requires that FF_MPI_APPS_DIR is set, and that it contains a pre-built copy of the Intel(R) mpi_apps for an appropriate message passing interface (MPI). like it's not optional, it literally needs it. set it or the vibe check fails.

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🌈 Examples 🌈

run it on a specific plane:

ethcabletest -p plane1 start

stop everything using a hostfile named good:

ethcabletest -f good stop

start on a couple hosts the Elvish way:

ethcabletest -h 'arwen elrond' start

and if you wanna be fancy with the environment variable instead:

HOSTS='arwen elrond' ethcabletest stop

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🧚 Environment Variables 🧚

these are also used by this command, iykyk:

• HOSTS — list of hosts. used when the -h option isn't supplied.
• HOSTS_FILE — file containing list of hosts. used in absence of -f and -h.
• FABRIC_PLANE — name of fabric plane. used in absence of -p, -f, and -h.
• FF_MAX_PARALLEL — maximum concurrent operations. keeps things from getting too chaotic ✨

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🫶 little reminder bestie: the flags don't merge and they don't magically invent new behaviour — what you see is what you get, and everything above is exactly as the original says it. no guessing, no extras, periodt.

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Copyright(C) 2020-2024 Intel Corporation 💜

that's the tea, that's the page, that's ethcabletest(8) from EFSFFCLIRG (Man Page) — go stress test those cables, you absolute icon 👑🌸