Nebula Matrix Network Driver Queued Ahead Of Linux 7.4

NBL is a new Ethernet networking driver destined to premiere in the upcoming Linux 6.4 kernel for supporting Nebula Matrix NICs. Nebula Matrix is a Chinese company developing smart NICs and data processing units (DPUs) for the data center. Beginning with Linux 7.4 their NBL driver should be upstream for supporting their m18110-NIC/m18000-NIC (marketed as SNIC s1000) is a series data center products. The Nebula Matrix SmartNIC S1000 series is a Chinese domestic 100GE network adapter design for cloud computing, HPC, and related fields with up to 2x100G interfaces per card. The S1000 series uses a PCIe Gen4 x16 interface and all the typical functionality one would expect from a high-end 100G network adapter. Nebula Matrix makes both Windows and Linux drivers for the hardware while now there will be mainline kernel support to enjoy a better out-of-the-box experience and for when carrying out kernel upgrades. More details on the S1000 series via Nebula-Matrix.com. Nebula Matrix developed this driver themselves and went through the upstreaming process to get it into the Linux kernel. The initial driver is merged to net-next as of this past week and thus expected to be submitted for the upcoming Linux 7.4 merge window.