(devices-infiniband)=
# Type: `infiniband`

```{note}
The `infiniband` device type is supported for both containers and VMs.
It supports hotplugging only for containers, not for VMs.
```

Incus supports two different kinds of network types for InfiniBand devices:

- `physical`: Passes a physical device from the host through to the instance.
  The targeted device will vanish from the host and appear in the instance.
- `sriov`: Passes a virtual function of an SR-IOV-enabled physical network device into the instance.

  ```{note}
  InfiniBand devices support SR-IOV, but in contrast to other SR-IOV-enabled devices, InfiniBand does not support dynamic device creation in SR-IOV mode.
  Therefore, you must pre-configure the number of virtual functions by configuring the corresponding kernel module.
  ```

To create a `physical` `infiniband` device, use the following command:

    incus config device add <instance_name> <device_name> infiniband nictype=physical parent=<device>

To create an `sriov` `infiniband` device, use the following command:

    incus config device add <instance_name> <device_name> infiniband nictype=sriov parent=<sriov_enabled_device>

## Device options

`infiniband` devices have the following device options:

Key                     | Type      | Default           | Required  | Description
:--                     | :--       | :--               | :--       | :--
`hwaddr`                | string    | randomly assigned | no        | The MAC address of the new interface (can be either the full 20-byte variant or the short 8-byte variant, which will only modify the last 8 bytes of the parent device)
`mtu`                   | integer   | parent MTU        | no        | The MTU of the new interface
`name`                  | string    | kernel assigned   | no        | The name of the interface inside the instance
`nictype`               | string    | -                 | yes       | The device type (one of `physical` or `sriov`)
`parent`                | string    | -                 | yes       | The name of the host device or bridge