Software Installation and Upgrade
Make sure to update DOCA on the host side before installing the BF-bundle on BlueField.
NVIDIA recommends upgrading to the latest BlueField software and firmware versions.
NVIDIA BlueField comes pre-installed with BlueField software based on Ubuntu 22.04. The DPU's Arm execution environment can be functionally isolated from the host server and uses a dedicated network management interface, separate from the host server's management interface. The Arm cores can run the Open vSwitch Database (OVSDB) or other virtual switches to create a secure solution for bare metal provisioning.
The software package also includes support for DPDK as well as applications for accelerated encryption.
The BlueField DPU supports several methods for OS deployments and upgrades:
Full OS image deployment using a BlueField boot stream file (BFB) via RShim interface (also compatible with SuperNICs).
Full OS deployment using PXE which can be used over different network interfaces available on the BlueField DPU (1GbE mgmt, tmfifo or NVIDIA ConnectX)
Individual packages can be installed or upgraded using standard Linux package management tools (
apt,dpkg, etc.)
The DPU's BMC software (BMC firmware, ERoT firmware, DPU golden image, and NIC firmware golden image) is included in the BF-Bundle and BF-FW-Bundle BFB files. The BFB installation updates BMC software components automatically if BMC credentials (BMC_USER and BMC_PASSWORD) are provided in bf.cfg.
The minimum BMC firmware version required to support BMC upgrades from a BFB image is 23.07 If your BMC firmware version is lower, follow the NVIDIA BlueField BMC Software documentation to upgrade the BMC firmware. You can find instructions for checking the BMC version in the software versioning guide.
By default, BMC_REBOOT="no". This means the BMC will need to be manually rebooted after the BFB installation process to apply the new BMC firmware version. Rebooting the BMC will reset the BMC console.
Similarly, BMC_UPGRADE_RESET="no" by default. If you change this setting to "yes," the UEFI will automatically reset the CEC and BMC during the first boot after BFB installation, ensuring that the new CEC and BMC firmware versions are applied. Rebooting the BMC will also reset the BMC console.
Upgrading BlueField software using the BFB bundle automatically performs a NIC firmware update. To apply the new firmware, a host system-level reset or power cycle is required.
A firmware-only BFB, named bf-fwbundle-<version>.prod.bfb, is available for BlueField devices for day 2 operations. This BFB updates all firmware components except for the Arm OS and DOCA software.
The firmware-only BFB can use the same set of bf.cfg parameters as a standard BFB, with the exception of BlueField-OS related flags (for example, UPDATE_DPU_OS).