About This Document
This document defines the NVIDIA-recommended method to manage NVIDIA® BlueField®-2 and NVIDIA® BlueField®-3 networking platforms (DPUs or SuperNICs), reviews BlueField management interfaces, protocols, and capabilities (hardware, firmware, etc.), and explains how to use them to manage the BlueField.
This document also defines the NVIDIA-recommended method for initial provisioning and deploying of BlueField, along with a detailed explanation of the required steps and commands.
Target Audience
This document describes day 1 and 2 operations, and is intended for product managers, CSOs, CTOs, and data center administrators.
Scope
The applicable use case for this documents includes 1-2 BlueField DPUs in North-West connectivity operating in DPU mode and 8 BlueField SuperNICs in East-West connectivity operating in NIC mode.
Technical Support
Customers who purchased NVIDIA products directly from NVIDIA are invited to contact us through the following methods:
E-mail: enterprisesupport@nvidia.com
Enterprise Support page: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/support/enterprise
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.
Document Conventions
This document uses angled brackets notation ('<>') to indicate variable parameters that depend on the user's specific setup or configuration which should be replaced accordingly.
The following are variables which make frequent appearances in this document:
Variable |
Description |
<BF-BMC-IP> |
IP of the BlueField's BMC |
<username> |
Specific username |
<password> |
Relevant password (whether of a specific user or otherwise) |
<SystemID> |
Used in Redfish requests, to obtain the value of this variable in your specific setup, run the following command:
Output example:
Info
SystemID is provided under Members: "@odata.id": "/redfish/v1/Systems/Bluefield".
|
Glossary
Term |
Description |
BFB |
BlueField bootstream |
BMC |
Board management controller |
BSP |
BlueField support package |
DOCA |
BlueField SDK |
eMMC |
Embedded multi-media card |
eROT |
Extended enhanced root of trust
|
FW |
Firmware |
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".
|
HW |
Hardware |
NIC |
Network interface card |
OOB |
Out-of-band |
OS |
Operating system |
PCIe |
PCI Express; Peripheral Component Interconnect Express |
PF |
Physical function |
RMC |
Remote management controller |
UEFI |
Unified extensible firmware interface |
VF |
Virtual function |
VM |
Virtual machine |