NVIDIA Mellanox MCX516A-GCAT SmartNIC Firmware 16.29.2002

Firmware which is added at the time of manufacturing, is used to run user programs on the device and can be thought of as the software that allows hardware to run. Embedded firmware is used to control the functions of various hardware devices and systems, much like a computer’s operating system (OS) controls the function of software applications. Firmware may be written into read-only memory (ROM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM) or flash memory.

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.
- It is recommended to enable the “above 4G decoding” BIOS setting for features that require large amount of PCIe resources. Such features are: SR-IOV with numerous VFs, PCIe Emulated Switch, and Large BAR Requests.

Changes and New Features:

- 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:

- Fixed a rare race condition involving traffic during FLR that caused a false fatal error alarm to be reported.
- Increased the default number of outstanding read bytes on the PCIe link for PCIe Gen4 devices when working in PCIe Gen3 servers. This will enable the NIC to maximize the PCIe link and achieve maximum bandwidth.
- Fixed an issue that prevented MCAM from reporting support for MFBA, MFBE, MFPA registry keys although they were available through the CMDIF interface.
- Fixed an issue that prevented a SFP28 cable from linking up in a 25GbE speed.
- Added protection for decapsulated packets with invalid IP (bad length). Such packets are now discarded in the hardware.
- When PER_PF_NUM_SF=1 (per PF configurations are used for SFs), if the number of SFs configured for a PF is 0 (PF_TOTAL_SF=0), than the firmware wrongly opens BAR2 with size 128KB.
- Modified the calculation of NUM_VF_MSIX to take into account NVME, Virtio Net/Blk, HotPlug PFs & VFs. Since max_total_msix is the maximum number used for all PFs and VFs (Port, NVME. Virtio Net/Blk, HotPlug), if there are not enough MSIX for all the devices, the number of port VF MSIX may be lowered (less than NUM_VF_MSIX) in order to not exceed the max_total_msix. Note: In case of compatibility issues with ab old driver requiring more than 4 MSI-X, you should consider lowering number of PFs/VFs on any of the configurable functions (NVME. Virtio Net/Blk).

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.