NVIDIA MCX623405AC-CDAN SmartNIC Firmware 22.31.2006

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.

Important Notes:
- SR-IOV - Virtual Functions (VF) per Port - The maximum Virtual Functions (VF) per port is 127.
- It is recommended to enable the “above 4G decoding” BIOS setting for features that require large amount of PCIe resources. Such features are: SR-IOV with numerous VFs, PCIe Emulated Switch, and Large BAR Requests.
- Security Hardening Enhancements: This release contains important reliability improvements and security hardening enhancements. NVIDIA recommends upgrading your devices' firmware to this release to improve the devices’ firmware security and reliability.

Changes and New Feature:

- Added support for QSHR access register to enable Set and Query rate limit per-host per-port.
- The firmware now exposes a new Software Steering ICM resource for VXLAN encap expand in order for the SW Steering to manage this resource directly.
- Added support for asymmetrical VFs per PF. To enable it: PF_NUM_OF_VF_VALID must be true, and PF_NUM_OF_VF to a none zero value.
- Added 2 new MAD access registers to enable mlxlink to read/write access registers by LID (to the whole subnet).
- Enabled the option to dynamically modify the MSIX and the number of virtio VF device queues. Note: This modification must be done before loading the driver on the device. This new capability includes the following limitations: total queue/msix number can not exceed 2k, queue/msix per virtio vf device cannot exceed 64, the scale of virtio device is limit to below 127 from mlxconfig
- The new LAG mode (PORT_SELECT_FT LAG (hash LAG)) distributes the packets to ports according to the hash on the packet headers, instead of distributing the packets according to the QP (queue affinity – legacy LAG) to avoid cases where the slow/fast path packets are transmitted from different ports. Identifying the right port is done by using destination type UPLINK with destination_eswitch_owner_vhca_id_valid set and destination_eswitch_owner_vhca_id indicating the PF associated with the port.

Queue Affinity (legacy LAG) limitation:

- LAG cannot be created when other functions on eSwitch are active (VFs, SFs, and x86 PF for SmartNIC).
- Note: This limitation does not exist in older firmware versions (xxx.31.1014 and below) when setting mlxconfig HIDE_PORT2_PF parameter for SmartNICs. This solution is no longer applicable when using firmware version xx.31.2xxx.

Steering LAG (hash) limitations:

- LAG cannot be created when other functions on eSwitch are active (VFs, SFs, and x86 PF for smartnic)
- Note: This limitation can be solved by setting LAG_RESOURCE_ALLOCATION=1
- Cannot create PORT_SELECT_FT LAG when the SQs on PF (connected to strict TIS) are opened.
- Note: This limitation can be solved by setting LAG_RESOURCE_ALLOCATION=1
- Note: It is recommended to set LAG_RESOURCE_ALLOCATION=1 before configuring the PORT_SELECT_FT lag. LAG_RESOURCE_ALLOCATION will pre-allocate needed firmware and hardware resources in order to CREATE_LAG with less limitations.
- Can be used only with Software Steering due to a bug with strict SQs in Firmware Steering.

Bug Fixes:

- Fixed and issue that resulted in QP allocation with the QPN of the previously destroyed QP due to the fact that the CreateQP does not guarantee a monotonic grow of QPN.
- Fixed the PFs iterator. Merged the regular PF iterator with the NODNiC PF iterator.
- Enabled the usage of inline actions in STEs instead of action list to avoid the hardware limitation of the maximum size of actions list (2^16).
- Enabled matching geneve_tlv_option_0_exist in the flow table entry as it is required when matching geneve_tlv_option_0_data parameter.
- Disabled the internal CQ doorbell recovery to avoid triggering the CQ doorbell recovery trigger and interrupt virtio traffic.
- Fixed an issue that caused some commands to get stuck or fail when configuring the HCA_CAP.cmdif_checksum to 0x3 and using firmware version lower than 22.31.1004. 
- Removed firmware dependency on credits reset during link reset flow.
- Fixed a rare case of a doorbell drop that caused the Rx side to get stuck that when running traffic on top of a virtio device. 
- Fixed unexpected and excessive interrupts caused by internal misconfigured EQs that took PCI bandwidth and introduced PCIe latency and as a result caused virtio Tx pps degradation.
- Fixed unexpected and excessive interrupts received by the Host when running virtio emulation application traffic due to internal misconfigured EQ in NIC.

About Network Adapter Firmware:

When connected, the operating system usually installs a generic firmware 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 firmware 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.