Changes and New Feature History

Warning

This section includes history of changes and new feature of 3 major releases back. For older releases history, please refer to the relevant firmware versions.

Feature/Change	Description
26.32.1010
OpenSNAPI Communication Channel	The communication channel is used to enable communication between processes on different vHCAs regardless of their network connectivity state.
QP Resources	Added a new NvConfig parameter `LOG_MAX_QUEUE` to set the maximum number of work queue resources (QP, RQ, SQ...) that can be created per function. The default value is 2^17.
Congestion Control Key	Added a Congestion Control Key to all Congestion Control MADs to authenticate that they are originated from a trusted source.
SMP Firewall	Added an SMP firewall to block the option of sending SMPs (MADS sent on QP0 from the Subnet Manager) from unauthorized hosts to prevent fake SMPs from being recognized as the SM.
Vendor Specific MADs: Class 0x9	Vendor Specific MADs Class 0x9 is no longer supported by the firmware. If case the firmware detects such MAD, the firmware will return a "NOT SUPPORTED" error to the user.
Match Definer Object	Added support for a new steering match definer format (format 33).
TLS/XTS/Signature Padding	Blocked the VF's ability to use both padding and signature in order to prevent the NIC from hanging.
Asserts' Severity Level	Added 3 new assert filters (Health buffer, NVlog, FW trace). The assert will be exposed now if its severity level is equal to or above the new filter. The filters are configurable by the ini file. The "Health buffer" filter is also configurable by new access register.
Steering LAG Mode (Hash LAG)	[Beta] The new LAG mode (PORT_SELECT_FT LAG (hash LAG)) distributes the packets to ports according to the hash on the packet headers, instead of distributing the packets according to the QP (queue affinity – legacy LAG) to avoid cases where the slow/fast path packets are transmitted from different ports. Identifying the right port is done by using destination type `UPLINK` with `destination_eswitch_owner_vhca_id_valid` set and `destination_eswitch_owner_vhca_id` indicating the PF associated with the port. The below are the Queue Affinity and Steering LAG (hash) limitations: Queue Affinity (legacy LAG) limitation: LAG cannot be created when other functions on eSwitch are active (VFs, SFs, and x86 PF for SmartNIC). Note: This limitation does not exist in older firmware versions (xxx.31.1014 and below) when setting mlxconfig HIDE_PORT2_PF parameter for SmartNICs. This solution is no longer applicable when using firmware version xx.31.2xxx. Steering LAG (hash) limitations: LAG cannot be created when other functions on eSwitch are active (VFs, SFs, and x86 PF for smartnic) Note: This limitation can be solved by setting `LAG_RESOURCE_ALLOCATION=1` Cannot create `PORT_SELECT_FT` LAG when the SQs on PF (connected to strict TIS) are opened. Note: This limitation can be solved by setting `LAG_RESOURCE_ALLOCATION=1` Note: It is recommended to set `LAG_RESOURCE_ALLOCATION=1` before configuring the `PORT_SELECT_FT` lag. `LAG_RESOURCE_ALLOCATION` will pre-allocate needed firmware and hardware resources in order to `CREATE_LAG` with less limitations. Can be used only with Software Steering due to a bug with strict SQs in Firmware Steering. Note: Due to changes in this feature, transmission timestamp in CQE is temporarily unsupported with multi eSwitch.
QSHR Access Register	Added support for QSHR access register to enable Set and Query rate limit per-host per-port.
Asymmetrical VFs per PF	Added support for asymmetrical VFs per PF. To enable it: `PF_NUM_OF_VF_VALID` must be true, and `PF_NUM_OF_VF` to a none zero value.
mlxlink Support to read/write Access Registers by LID	Added 2 new MAD access registers to enable mlxlink to read/write access registers by LID (to the whole subnet).
Bug Fixes	See Bug Fixes.
26.31.1014
Using NC-SI Commands for Debugging PCI Link Failures	Implemented a new NC-SI command `get_debug_info` to get mstdump via the NC-SI protocol to debug a device if the PCI link fails for any given reason.
Enable/Disable RDMA via the UEFI HII System Settings	Added support for Enabling/Disabling NIC and RDMA (port/partition) via the UEFI HII system settings. Note: Values set in this option only take effect when is Ethernet mode.
NC-SI Speed Reporting	Updated the NC-SI speed reporting output to support 200GbE speed. Now when running the NC-SI command, the output presents 200GbE speed as well.
Increased the Maximum Number of MSIX per VF	Increased the maximum number of MSIX per VF to 127. Note that increasing the number of MSIX per VF (NUM_VF_MSIX) affects the configured number of VFs (NUM_OF_VFS). The firmware may reduce the configured number of MSIX per VF and/or the number of VFs with respect to maximum number of MSIX vectors supported by the device (MAX_TOTAL_MSIX).
Asymmetrical MSIX Configuration	This feature allows the device to be configured with a different number of MSIX vectors per physical PCI functions. To use this feature, please follow these steps: Clear NUM_PF_MSIX_VALID to disable global symmetrical MSIX configuration. Set PF_NUM_PF_MSIX_VALID to enable asymmetrical per Physical Function MSIX configuration. Configure PF_NUM_PF_MSIX per physical PCI function. Notes: When using this configuration, NUM_PF_MSIX (the symmetrical MSIX configuration field) will be ignored by the firmware although it will be present in the mlxconfig query. The asymmetrical MSIX configuration and the legacy symmetrical MSIX configuration are mutually exclusive. When both are enabled, the firmware will work according to the symmetrical MSIX configuration. Step #3 should be done on each of the physical PCI functions, otherwise, the device will use default configurations.
Adaptive Routing (AR): multi_path, data_in_order	Added a new bit ("data_in_order") to query the QP and allow a process/library to detect when the AR is enabled.
flex_parser for GENEVE Hardware Offloadand ICMP	Added a new flex parser to support GENEVE hardware offloadand ICMP.
Non-Page-Supplier-FLR	When the non-page-supplier-FLR funcion is initiated, the firmware triggers a page event to the page supplier to indicate that all pages should be returned for the FLR function. Pages are returned by the driver to the kernel without issuing the MANAGE_PAGES commands to the firmare.
PCIe Eye Opening	Enabled measuring PCIe eye dynamic grading over PCIe Gen3 speed.
Bug Fixes	See Bug Fixes in this Firmware Version section.
26.30.1004
Precision Time Protocol (PTP)	Enabled Precision Time Protocol (PTP) timestamp (UTC mode) in Multi-Host devices.
RoCE, Lossy, slow_restart_idle	Removed triggering unexpected internal CNPs for RoCE Lossy slow_restart_idle feature.
Performance: Steering	Added support for a new NV config mode `“icm_cache_mode_large_scale_steering”` that enables less cache misses and improves performance for cases when working with many steering rules. This capability is enabled using the mlxconfig parameter `"ICM_CACHE_MODE"`.
Origin bit in the ctrl Segment of the WQE	This new capability adds an origin bit in the ctrl segment of the WQE sent by the Target to the Initiator during frontend controller exceptions in the NVMeoF interface. The WQE sent with the origin bit "set" will have SWQE_OPCODE_SEND_IMM opcode.
Connection Tracking Window Validation	Enabled connection tracking window validation by supporting CONN_TRACK_OFFLOAD general object and WQE with opcode ASO and opmode CONN_TRACK.
VF/VF-group rate-limiting	This new capability enables VF/VF-group rate-limiting while per-host rate-limiter is also applied.
Sub-Function Scalability	Expanded the Sub-Function capability to support the scale of up to 512 by supporting more MSIX, removing internal obstacles and reducing the ICM memory footprint.
NvConfig: Sub-Functions	This new capability enables asymmetric Sub-Function configuration. It expands the asymmetric Sub-Function configuration to support asymmetric configurations between all PFs, and provides Sub-Function scalability and asymmetric NV configurations.
Match Definer Object	Added support for new steering match definer formats. Match definer format 26 Match definer format 27
Steering by Sanity Check Flags	Added support for matching the following flags: `l3_ok, l4_ok, ipv4_checksum_ok, l4_checksum_ok` bits in `create_flow_group` and `set_flow_table_entry` commands, as well as in match definer formats (formats 0,1,2 and 3) to be used in matching actions on the packet headers.
Bug Fixes	See Bug Fixes section.
26.29.2002
Reserved QPN	[Beta] This capability allows the software to reserve a QPN that can be used to establish connection performed over RDMA_CM, and provide the software a unique QP number. Since RDMA_CM does not support DC, by using CREATE_QPN_RESERVED_OBJECT the software can reserve a QPN value from the firmware's managed QP number namespace range. This allows multiple software processes to hold a unique QPN value instead of using UD-QPs.
Bug Fixes	See Bug Fixes section.
26.29.1016
Multi-Application QoS per QP	Added the option to allow applications to build their own QoS tree over the NIC hierarchy by connecting QPs to responder/requestor Queue Groups.
NRZ Link Performance	Improved NRZ link performance (RX algorithm).
NRZ Link-Up Time	Improved NRZ link-up time (25G\50G\100G speeds).
Direct Packet Placement (DPP)	Added support for Direct Packet Placement (DPP). DPP is a receive side transport service in which the Ethernet packets are scattered to the memory according to a packet sequence number (PSN) carried by the packet, and not by their arrival order. To enable DPP offload, the software should create a special RQ by using the CREATE_RQ command, and set DPP relevant attributes.
Ethernet wqe_too_small Mode	Added a new counter per vPort that counts the number of packets that reached the Ethernet RQ but cannot fit into the WQE due to their large size. Additionally, we added the option to control if such packet will cause “CQE with Error” or “CQE_MOCK”.
Access Registries	`ignore_flow_level` is now enabled by the TRUST LEVEL access registry.
Pause Frames from VFs	[Beta] Enabled the capability to allow Virtual Functions to send Pause Frames packets.
Counters	Added support for the `cq_overrun` counter. The counter represents the number of times CQs enter an error state due to overflow that occur when the device tries to post a CQE into a full CQ buffer.
Steering Dump	Hardware steering dump output used for debugging and troubleshooting. Please see Known Issue 2213356 for its limitations.
26.28.2006
Sub Function (SF) BAR Size	Increased the minimum Sub Function (SF) BAR size from 128KB to 256KB. Due to the larger SF BAR size, for the same PF BAR2 size, which can be queried/modified by LOG_PF_BAR2_SIZE NV config, the firmware will support half of the SFs. To maintain the same amount of supported SFs, software needs to increase the LOG_PF_BAR2_SIZE NV config value by 1.
GPUDirect in Virtualized Environment	Enabled a direct access to ATS from the NIC to GPU buffers using PCIe peer-to-peer transactions. To enable this capability, the “p2p_ordering_mode” parameter was added to the NV_PCI_CONF configuration. Note: When SECURE_ALL or SECURE_TRUST is configured, ATS and RO must be set identically. When SECURE_NONE is configured, ATS and RO may be set independently as the current firmware behavior allows.
Non-Volatile Configurations	Added a new Non-Volatile Configuration parameter to control VL15 buffer size (VL15_BUFFER_SIZE). Note: VL15 buffer size enlargement will decrease all other VLs buffers size.
NC-SI	Added a new NC-SI command (get_device_id) to report a unique device identifier.
NC-SI	Added new NC-SI commands (`get_lldp_nb, set_lldp_nb`) to query the current status of LLDP and to enable/disable it.
ROCE ACCL	Split the SlowRestart ROCE_ACCL into the following: `slow-restart` – used to reduce rate on retransmission events `slow-restart-after-idle` – used to reduce rate before first transmission after >1s without transmitting
ROCE ACCL	Enabled TX PSN window size configuration using LOG_TX_PSN_WINDOW NVconfig parameter. Note: Due to hardware limitations, `max log_tx_psn_win` value can be set 9.
Bug Fixes	See Bug Fixes.
26.28.1002
General	This is the initial firmware release of NVIDIA® Mellanox® ConnectX®-6 Lx adapter cards.
PHY-less Reset in PLU	[Beta] Enables the user to reset the firmware without resetting the PHY. The links that were up will stay up, all the other links will be disabled. Note: Currently this capability does not support firmware upgrade and downgrade.
Hardware Tag Matching	Increased the maximum XRQ number to 512.
PTP	Updated the Packet Pacing clock to be in sync with the PTP clock.
PTP	Added support for hardware real time clock by UTC timestamp in PCIE BAR and CQE.
NC-SI 1.2 New Command	Implemented the following new command from NS-SI 1.2 specification: Get PF Assignment
Non-Volatile Configurations (NVCONFIG)	Added the following new mlxconfig parameters to the Non-Volatile Configurations section. `log_max_outstandng_wqe` `ece_disable_mask`