NVIDIA 699-21014-0230 DPU Firmware 32.40.1000

Firmware which is added at the time of manufacturing, is used to run user programs on the device and can be thought of as the software that allows hardware to run. Embedded firmware is used to control the functions of various hardware devices and systems, much like a computer’s operating system (OS) controls the function of software applications. Firmware may be written into read-only memory (ROM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM) or flash memory.

NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPU provides innovative acceleration, security, and efficiency in every host. BlueField-3 data center infrastructure combines the power of the NVIDIA ConnectX-6 Dx with programmable Arm cores and hardware offloads for software-defined storage, networking, security, and management workloads.

NVIDIA BlueField-3 also delivers superior performance, security, and reduced TCO for cloud computing platforms, enabling organizations to efficiently build and operate virtualized, containerized, and bare-metal infrastructures at massive scale.

Changes:

- Enabled Single Netdev mapping to two PCIe devices (Socket Direct). Now multiple devices (PFs) of the same port can be combined under a single netdev instance. Traffic is passed through different devices belonging to different NUMA sockets, thus saving cross-NUMA traffic and allowing apps running on the same netdev from different NUMAs to still feel a sense of proximity to the device and achieve improved performance. The netdev is destroyed once any of the PFs is removed. A proper configuration would utilize the correct close NUMA when working on a certain app/CPU. Currently, this capability is limited to PFs only, and up to two devices (sockets). To enable the feature, one must configure the same Socket Direct group (non zero) for both PFs through mlxconfig SD_GROUP.
- Added support for egress ACL to the uplink by adding a new bit to the Set Flow Table Entry: allow_fdb_uplink_hairpin.
- Added a new access register (PBWS) to set the port maximum bandwidth to a value between 95% to 100%.
- Added a new NVConfig parameter to force Congestion Control algorithm to be SW-DCQCN.

Bug Fixes:

- Fixed an issue that prevented Congestion Control from behaving properly when GRH is used in traffic of an IB cluster.
- Fixed an issue with Selective-Repeat configuration which occasionally caused retransmission to wait for timeout instead of out-of-sequence NACK.
- Enabled the lowest minimum rate for SW DCQCN to enable congestion control to hold a larger amount of QPs without pauses or drops.
- Fixed an issue that resulted in console getting stuck and kernel call trace when trying to destroy native VFs or unload the MLNX_OFED driver when setting the mlxconfig configuration of 192 native VFs + 416 VBLK VFs + 416 VNET VFs.
- Fixed an issue that resulted in packets loss in 3rd party NVMF target when using migreq==0 over ethernet. Such error is now ignored, and the systems stays with the current (MIGRATED) PA state.
- Added support for 16M IPsec sessions.
- dded new parameters for PLDM temperature thresholds to the B3140H DPU cards: Warning - 97 C, Critical - 102 C, Hysteresis - 5 C
- Fixed an issue in the RTT template that resulted in letters at the end of the filename being dropped from its description as they were not aligned when querying for the description using the PPCC command.

Known Issues:

- When configuring BlueField-3 Arm cores as PCIe root-complex, all non-mlx5 devices must always set the BlueField-3’s IOMMU to disabled or passthrough mode. Turning IOMMU “ON” requires special handling of interrupts in the driver or the use of polling. For further assistance, contact NVIDIA support.
- SW_RESET with a pending image is currently not supported.
- The supported DDR5 link speed in SKU B3220, is 5200 MT/s.
- Occasionally, the device may hang when there a hot plug is performed from a unknown direction.
- Some pre-OS environments may fail when sensing a hot-plug operation during their boot stage.
- The I2C clock fall time is lower than the 12ns minimum defined in the I2C-bus specification. For further information, refer to the I²C-bus Specification, Version 7.0, October 2021, homepage
- When connecting to a High Speed Traffic Generator in 400G speed, the linkup time may takes up to 3 minutes.
- External flash access such as flash read using the MFT tools will fail if there is a pending image on the flash.
- On BlueField-3 devices, from DOCA 2.2.0 to 32.37.1306 (or lower), the host crashes when executing partial Arm reset (e.g., Arm reboot; BFB push; mlxfwreset). Workaround: Before downgrading the firmware, perform: echo 0 > /sys/bus/platform/drivers/mlxbf-bootctl/large_icm and Arm reboot
- When unloading the network drivers on an external host, sync1 reset may be still reported as 'supported' although it is not. Thus, initiating the reset flow may result in reset failure after a few minutes.
- When connecting to a Spirent switch in 400G speed, the linkup time may takes up to 3 minutes.
- PCIe PML1 is disabled.
- Unexpected system behavior might be observed if the driver is loaded while reset is in progress.
- When performing PCIe link secondary-bus-reset, disable/enable or mlxfwreset on AMD based Genoa systems, the device takes longer then expected to link up, due to a PCIe receiver termination misconfiguration.
- The firmware rollback fails for the signature retransmit flow if the QPN field is configured in the mkey (as it only allows the given QP to use this Mkey) as the firmware rollback flow relies on an internal QP that uses the mkey.
- Socket-Direct is currently not supported.

About Network Adapter Drivers:

When connected, the operating system usually installs a generic driver that helps the computer to recognize the newly attached device.

However, proper software must be applied if you want to make use of all features that the network adapter has available. This task also allows computers to properly recognize all device characteristics such as manufacturer, chipset, technology, and others.

Updating the adapter's drivers and utilities version might improve overall performance and stability, increase transfer speeds, fix different compatibility problems and several network-related errors, as well as bring various other changes.

To install this release, simply get the package, extract it if necessary, run the setup, and follow the instructions displayed on-screen. When done, don't forget to perform a system restart and reconnect the network adapter to make sure that all changes take effect properly.

Without further ado, if you intend to apply this version, click the download button and install the package. Moreover, check with our website as often as possible so that you don't miss a single new release.