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About This Document

NVIDIA® BlueField® DPU software is built from the BlueField BSP (Board Support Package) which includes the operating system and the DOCA framework. BlueField BSP includes the bootloaders and other essentials for loading and setting software components. The BSP loads the official BlueField operating system (Ubuntu reference Linux distribution) to the DPU. DOCA is the software framework and SDK for the development of applications and infrastructure services. DOCA includes runtime libraries; the DOCA Runtime stack for Arm supports various accelerations for storage, networking, and security. As such, customers can run any Linux-based application in the BlueField software environment seamlessly.

This guide provides product release notes as well as information on the BSP and how to develop and/or customize applications, system software, and file system images for the BlueField platform.

Important: Make sure to download the latest available software packages for the procedures documented in this guide to run as expected.

Intended Audience

This document is intended for software developers and DevOps engineers interested in creating and/or customizing software applications and system software for the NVIDIA BlueField DPU platform.

Software Download

To download product software, refer to the DOCA SDK developer zone. 

Technical Support

Customers who purchased NVIDIA products directly from NVIDIA are invited to contact us through the following methods:

Customers who purchased NVIDIA M-1 Global Support Services, please see your contract for details regarding technical support.

Customers who purchased NVIDIA products through an NVIDIA-approved reseller should first seek assistance through their reseller.

Glossary

TermDescription
ACEAXI coherency extensions
ACPIAdvanced configuration and power interface
AMBA®Advanced microcontroller bus architecture
ARBArbitrate
ATFArm-trusted firmware
AXI4Advanced eXtensible Interface 4
BDF addressBus, device, function address. This is the device's PCIe bus address to uniquely identify the specific device.
BERTBoot error record table
BF_INST_DIRThe directory where the BlueField software is installed
BFBBlueField bootstream
BMCBoard management controller
BSDBlueField software distribution
BUFBuffer
BSPBlueField support package
CHICoherent hub interface; Arm® protocol used over the BlueField Skymesh specification
CLCache line
CMDQCommand queue
CMOCache maintenance operation
COBCollision buffer
DATData
DEKData encryption key
DMADirect memory access
DOCADPU SDK
DPAData path accelerator
DPDKData plane development kit
DPIDeep packet inspection
DPUData processing unit, the third pillar of the data center with CPU and GPU
DVMDistributed virtual memory
ECPFEmbedded CPU physical function
EMEM/EMIExternal memory interface; block in the MSS which performs the actual read/write from the DDR device
eMMCEmbedded multi-media card
ESPEFI system partition
FIPSFederal Information Processing Standards
FSFile system
FWFirmware
GDBGNU debugger
GPTGUID partition table
HNFHome node interface
Host

When referring to "the host" this documentation is referring to the server host. When referring to the Arm based host, the documentation will specifically call out "Arm host".

  • Server host OS refers to the Host Server OS (Linux or Windows)
  • Arm host refers to the AARCH64 Linux OS which is running on the BlueField Arm Cores
HWHardware
hwmonHardware monitoring
IBInfiniBand
ICMInterface configuration memory
IPMBIntelligent platform management bus
IPMIIntelligent platform management interface
KGDBKernel debugger
KGDBOCKernel debugger over console
LATLatency
LCRDLink credit
LSOLarge send offload
MSSMemory subsystem
MSTMellanox software tools
NATNetwork address translation
NICNetwork interface card
NISTNational Institute of Standards and Technology
OCDOn-chip debugger
OOBOut-of-band
OSOperating system
OVSOpen vSwitch
PCIePCI Express; Peripheral Component Interconnect Express
PFPhysical function
PKPublic key
PKAPublic key accelerator
POCPoint of coherence
RDRead
RegExRegular expression
REQRequest
RESResponse
RN

Request node

RN-F – Fully coherent request node
RN-D – IO coherent request node with DVM support
RN-I – IO coherent request node

RNGRandom number generator/generation
RoCEEthernet and RDMA over converged Ethernet
RQReceive queue
RShimRandom Shim
RXReceive
SBSAServer base system architecture
SDKSoftware development kit
SFSub-function or scalable function
SHASecure hash algorithm
SLService level
SMMUSystem memory management unit
SNPSnooping
SQSend queue
SR-IOVSingle-root IO virtualization
STLStall
TBUTranslation buffer unit
TIRTransport interface receive
TISTransport interface send
TLSTransport layer security
TRBTrail buffer
TSOTCP send offload
TSOTotal store order
TXTransmit
UEFIUnified extensible firmware interface
UPVSUEFI persistent variable store
VFVirtual function
VMVirtual machine
VPIVirtual protocol interconnect
VSTVirtual switch tagging
WRWrite
WRDBWrite data buffer

Related Documentation

Document NameDescription
InfiniBand Architecture Specification, Vol. 1, Release 1.3.1The InfiniBand Architecture Specification that is provided by IBTA
Firmware Release NotesSee Firmware Release Notes
MFT DocumentationSee Firmware Tools Release Notes and User Manual
NVIDIA OFED for Linux User ManualIntended for system administrators responsible for the installation, configuration, management and maintenance of the software and hardware of VPI adapter cards
WinOF DocumentationSee WinOF Release Notes and User Manual
NVIDIA BlueField-2 BMC Software User ManualThis document provides general information concerning the BMC on the NVIDIA® BlueField®-2 DPU, and is intended for those who want to familiarize themselves with the functionality provided by the BMC
NVIDIA BlueField-2 Ethernet DPU User GuideThis document provides details as to the interfaces of the board, specifications, required software and firmware, and a step-by-step plan of how to bring up the BlueField-2 Ethernet DPU
NVIDIA BlueField-2 InfiniBand/VPI DPU User GuideThis document provides details as to the interfaces of the board, specifications, required software and firmware, and a step-by-step plan of how to bring up the BlueField-2 InfiniBand/VPI DPU
NVIDIA BlueField Ethernet DPU User GuideThis document provides details as to the interfaces of the board, specifications, required software and firmware for operating the BlueField Ethernet DPU, hardware installation, driver installation and bring-up instructions
NVIDIA BlueField InfiniBand/VPI DPU User GuideThis document provides details as to the interfaces of the board, specifications, required software and firmware for operating the BlueField InfiniBand/VPI DPU, hardware installation, driver installation and bring-up instructions
NVIDIA DOCA SDKThe NVIDIA DOCA™ SDK enables developers to rapidly create applications and services on top of NVIDIA® BlueField® data processing units (DPUs), leveraging industry-standard APIs. With DOCA, developers can deliver breakthrough networking, security, and storage performance by harnessing the power of NVIDIA's DPUs.
NVIDIA BlueField Reference Platform Hardware User ManualProvides details as to the interfaces of the reference platform, specifications and hardware installation instructions
NVIDIA BlueField Ethernet Controller Card User ManualThis document provides details as to the interfaces of the board, specifications, required software and firmware for operating the card, hardware installation, driver installation and bring-up instructions
NVIDIA BlueField UEFI Secure Boot User GuideThis document provides details and directions on how to enable UEFI secure boot and sign UEFI images
NVIDIA BlueField Secure Boot User GuideThis document provides guidelines on how to enable the Secure Boot on BlueField DPUs
NVIDIA BlueField SNAP and virtio-blk SNAP DocumentationThis document describes the configuration parameters of NVMe SNAP and virtio-blk SNAP in detail

PKA Driver Design and Implementation Architecture Document

This document provides a description of the design and implementation of the Public Key accelerator (PKA) hardware driver. The driver manages and controls the EIP-154 Public Key Infrastructure Engine, an FIPS 140-3 compliant PKA and operates as a co-processor to offload the processor of the host.
PKA Programming Guide

This document is intended to guide a new crypto application developer or a public key user space driver. It offers programmers the basic information required to code their own PKA-based application for NVIDIA® BlueField® DPU.