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 following are the supported HCAs and firmware versions:
HCAs | Firmware Version | FlexBoot Version | UEFI Version |
NVIDIA BlueField-2 | 24.35.1012 | 3.6.804 | 14.28.15 |
ConnectX-7 | 28.35.1012 | ||
ConnectX-6 Dx | 22.35.1012 | ||
ConnectX-6 Lx | 26.35.1012 | ||
ConnectX-6 | 20.35.1012 | ||
ConnectX-5/ConnectX-5 Ex | 16.35.1012 |
The following are the supported legacy HCAs and firmware versions:
HCAs | Firmware Version | FlexBoot Version | UEFI Version |
NVIDIA BlueField | 18.33.1048 | 3.6.502 | 14.26.17 |
ConnectX-4 Lx | 14.32.1010 | 14.25.17 | |
ConnectX-4 | 12.28.2006 | 3.6.102 | 14.22.14 |
ConnectX-3/ConnectX-3 Pro | 2.42.5000 | 3.4.752 | N/A |
Software Downloads
Document Revision History
A list of the changes made to this document are provided in User Manual Revision History.