Mellanox MCX516A-GCAT SmartNIC Firmware 16.28.2006

Important Notes:

- Security Hardening Enhancements: This release contains important reliability improvements and security hardening enhancements. Mellanox recommends upgrading your devices firmware to this release to improve the devices’ firmware security and reliability.
- When upgrading or changing configuration on multi-host adapter cards, for the changes to take effect, PCIe restart must be simultaneously send from both hosts (servers). To do so, perform the following: 1. Shut down the server with the auxiliary card, 2. Shut down the server with the primary card, 3. Bring back the server with the primary card, 4. Bring back the server with the auxiliary card.
- SR-IOV - Virtual Functions (VF) per Port - The maximum Virtual Functions (VF) per port is 127. For further information, see RoCE Limitations.

Changes and New Features:

- 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.
- VXLAN Extension Header: This feature enables the user to define their own VXLAN extensions for the VXLAN header. The last byte of the VXLAN header is used as a length value for the private extension headers that comes after the VXLAN headers. This VXLAN extension header is supported when the "flex_parser_profile_6_supported" parameter is configured.
- 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 and 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:

- Updated the following Mellanox OEM NC-SI commands to fix an issue that caused the "Port swap" capability not to function properly: Get Temperature, Get Module Serial Data, Set Module Serial Data
- Fixed and issue that resulted in driver startup failure when working in pass-through mode and dual port devices. 

About Network Adapter Drivers:

When connected, the operating system usually installs a generic driver that helps the computer to recognize the newly attached device.

However, proper software must be applied if you want to make use of all features that the network adapter has available. This task also allows computers to properly recognize all device characteristics such as manufacturer, chipset, technology, and others.

Updating the adapter's drivers and utilities version might improve overall performance and stability, increase transfer speeds, fix different compatibility problems and several network-related errors, as well as bring various other changes.

To install this release, simply get the package, extract it if necessary, run the setup, and follow the instructions displayed on-screen. When done, don't forget to perform a system restart and reconnect the network adapter to make sure that all changes take effect properly.

Without further ado, if you intend to apply this version, click the download button and install the package. Moreover, check with our website as often as possible so that you don't miss a single new release.