10GbE Networking on a Budget: Mellanox ConnectX-3 and Bricked NICs
TL;DR I upgraded the inter-node networking from 1GbE to 10GbE using Mellanox ConnectX-3 NICs from eBay (~$15-20 each). Two of the three NICs worked immediately. The third needed a firmware flash from 2.33.5220 to 2.42.5000 using mstflint, which required two cold boots to recover from a partially bricked state. All three Proxmox hosts now have 10GbE connectivity via active-backup bonds. I also deployed Security Scanner infrastructure and fixed ARC runner Pod Security Standards. ...