Mellanox Technologies Mellanox FlexBoot Release Notes =============================== Rev 3.4.000, September 2012 Contents: --------- 1. General 2. Supported Adapters 3. Supported Firmware and Firmware Tools 4. Tested Platforms 5. Package Contents 6. Changes From Previous versions 7. Known Issues 1. General ---------- These are the release notes for "Mellanox FlexBoot", the software for Boot over Mellanox Technologies adapter devices supporting VPI. FlexBoot enables booting kernels or operating systems (OS) from remote servers in compliance with the PXE specification. This package is based on the open source project iPXE available at http://www.ipxe.org. 2. Supported Adapters --------------------- The package supports the following ConnectX® family Network Adapter devices and cards. Specifically, adapter products responding to the following PCI Device IDs are supported: ConnectX, ConnectX-2 and ConnectX-3 - Decimal 25408 (Hexadecimal: 6340) - Decimal 25418 (Hexadecimal: 634a) - Decimal 25448 (Hexadecimal: 6368) - Decimal 26418 (Hexadecimal: 6732) - Decimal 26428 (Hexadecimal: 673c) - Decimal 26438 (Hexadecimal: 6746) - Decimal 26448 (Hexadecimal: 6750) - Decimal 25458 (Hexadecimal: 6372) - Decimal 26458 (Hexadecimal: 675a) - Decimal 26468 (Hexadecimal: 6764) - Decimal 26478 (Hexadecimal: 676e) - Decimal 4099 (Hexadecimal: 1003) 3. Supported Firmware and Firmware Tools ---------------------------------------- Firmware: - ConnectX-3 fw-ConnectX3 version 2.10.0700 and above - ConnectX-2 fw-ConnectX2 version 2.8.0600 and above - ConnectX fw-25408 version 2.8.0600 and above Tools: - MFT (Mellanox Firmware Tools) version 2.7.0 and later 4. Tested Platforms ------------------- Server Vendor & Model BIOS Manuf. & Version DELL PE 2950 DELL 2.7.0 DELL PE 1950 Phoenix 2.6.1 DELL PE SC1435 Phoenix 2.2.5 DELL SC1435 DELL 1.1.2 DELL PE R510 DELL 1.3.6 DELL PE R810 DELL 1.0.0 DELL PE R815 DELL 0.2.5 DELL PE R720 DELL 1.1.2 DELL DCS C6105 DELL 0.1.9 DELL DCS C6100 InventecESC 0.10 DELL DCS PEC DELL 1.0.21 DELL PE T710 DELL 2.1.9 DELL PE T620 DELL 1.1.3 Supermicro X6DH8-G/X6DHT-G Phoenix 6.00 Supermicro X7DWT Gen2 Phoenix 1.2b Fujitsu PRIMERGY CX250 S1 Fujitsu 3B05.3196 Fujitsu PRIMERGY RX300 S7 Fujitsu D2939-A1x HP ProLiant DL380p G8 HP P70 IBM SystemX 3550 IBM GFE144AUS-1.14 IBM SystemX 3550 M3 IBM D6E145FUS-1.07 IBM SystemX 3650 M2 IBM D6E157AUS-1.15 IBM eServer 326M IBM P4E135AUS-1.35 IBM iDataPlex DX360 M4 IBM TDE107UUS-1.00 5. Package Contents ------------------- The FlexBoot package is provided as a tarball (.tgz extension) containing the files specified in section 2. Supported Adapters. 1. A PXE ROM image file for each of the supported Mellanox network adapter devices. Specifically, the following images are included: ConnectX / ConnectX-2 / ConnectX-3 images: - ConnectX_FlexBoot__ROM-.mrom where the number after the "ConnectX_FlexBoot_" prefix indicates the corresponding PCI Device ID of the ConnectX / ConnectX-2 / ConnectX-3 device. 6. Changes From Previous versions --------------------------------- 6.1 Changes From Version 3.3.420 -------------------------------- - Increased the number of the supported systems - Added the ability to merge the PXE image with the UFI image - Fixed "no more network devices" issues 6.2 Changes From Version 3.3.400 -------------------------------- - Increased DHCP timeout 6.3 Changes From Version 3.0.000 -------------------------------- - Added ConnectX-3 support - Increased the number of the supported systems - All iPXE features are now part of the ROM image - Support multiple functions (Flex10) - Added support for Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) - Added ifenable/ifdisable network interface command - Improved reliability 7. Known Issues --------------- - Firmware 2.11.0500 and below does not support booting over Ethernet with VPI adapter cards when using QSFP cables (40GE, hybrid cables) - Booting from WDS running on Windows 2008 R2 in InfiniBand mode, is currently not supported due to compatibility issues between FlexBoot 3.4.000 and Mellanox WinOF v3.2 and below - In dual port adapters, when the first port is already linked up with DHCP, and has received a TFTP address, booting from the second port might result in TFTP download failure. Workaround: Press CTRL-C to cancel the first port's PXE process during link up. - Several BIOS vendors have limited boot-vector space and may not display FlexBoot in their boot menu Workaround: Disable the embedded NIC boot agent in BIOS - In several BIOS, the server might hang during FlexBoot booting due to wrong configuration of the PMM - Unsupported platforms: o PPC - The iPXE project includes other features that have not been tested on Mellanox FlexBoot. For example, SRP boot, HTTP boot and AOE boot. - Large Receive Offload (LRO) and iSCSI may not interoperate due to a bug in current Linux kernel distributions. To avoid this problem when using iSCSI, disable LRO in the IPoIB module. See the Mellanox FlexBoot user's manual for details under the Diskless Machines chapter (InfiniBand Ports). - Once the machine reaches the state "POST" (after BIOS execution), the user will be prompted to press CTRL-B to invoke Mellanox FlexBoot CLI. On some BIOSs invoking the CLI may not work properly. This may occur if not all BIOS parameters have been configured at the time of invoking the CLI. Workaround: Skip invoking CLI at the POST stage. Instead, invoke CLI after FlexBoot starts booting (you will be prompted to enter CTRL-B).