Overview
NVIDIA® PreBoot drivers are a multiprotocol remote boot technology that support remote Boot over InfiniBand (BoIB) and over Ethernet.
Using Virtual Protocol Interconnect (VPI) technologies available in NVIDIA® ConnectX® adapters, PreBoot drivers give IT Managers’ the choice to boot from a remote storage target (iSCSI target) or a LAN target (Ethernet Remote Boot Server) using a single ROM image on ConnectX products.
FlexBoot is based on the open source project iPXE available at http://www.ipxe.org.
PreBoot drivers first initialize the adapter device, senses the port protocol – Ethernet or InfiniBand, and brings up the port. Then it connects to a DHCP server to obtain its assigned IP address and network parameters, and also to obtain the source location of the kernel/OS to boot from. The DHCP server instructs the PreBoot drivers to access the kernel/OS through a TFTP server, an iSCSI target, or some other service.
Supported Adapter Devices and Firmware
The package supports the following HCA and firmware versions:
HCAs | Firmware Version | FlexBoot Version |
ConnectX®-3/ConnectX®-3 Pro | 2.42.5000 | 3.4.752 |
ConnectX®-4 | 12.28.2006 | 3.6.102 |
ConnectX®-4 Lx | 14.32.1010 | 3.6.502 |
ConnectX®-5/ConnectX®-5 Ex | 16.32.1010 | |
NVIDIA® BlueField® | 18.32.1010 | |
NVIDIA® BlueField®-2 | 24.32.1010 | |
ConnectX®-6 | 20.32.1010 | |
ConnectX®-6 Dx | 22.32.1010 | |
ConnectX®-6 Lx | 26.32.1010 |
Software Downloads
Please visit http://www.mellanox.com → Products → Software → InfiniBand Drivers → FlexBoot
Please visit http://www.mellanox.com → Products → Software → InfiniBand Drivers → UEFI
Document Revision History
A list of the changes made to this document are provided in User Manual Revision History.