Mellanox Technologies
                             *********************

              MLNX-OFED ESX Driver for VMware(R) Infrastructure 5.1Ux/5.5Ux
                                 Release Notes
                            Driver Version 1.9.10.0
                          Last Updated: July 15, 2015
						  


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Table of Contents
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1. Overview
2. Main Features Overview
3. Contents of Mellanox OFED ESXi
4. Supported HCAs
5. Known Issues
 
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1. Overview
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These are the release notes of Ethernet EN Driver for VMware(R) vSphere
5.1Ux/5.5Ux. This document provides instructions on Ethernet driver for Mellanox 
Technologies ConnectX3/ConnectX2 based adapter cards with VMware ESXi Server 
environment.

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2. Legacy Features Overview
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 - Single/Dual port
 - MSI-X / Int-X
 - NetQueue support
 - Multiple Tx/Rx rings
 - HW Tx/Rx checksum offload
 - Large Send Offload (TCP Segmentation Offload)
 - VLAN Tx/Rx acceleration (HW VLAN stripping/insertion)
 - Ethtool support
 - NAPI support
 - WOL (only on supported hardware)
 - NC-SI
 - Auto moderation
 - Net dump (Only for ESXi5.5Ux)
 - RSS Queues
 - Fixed Pass-Through
 - 10G
 - 40G (Only for ESXi5.5Ux)

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3. New Features 
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MLNX-EN-ESX-1.9.10.0 provides the following changes and new features:
 - iSER
 - RoCE

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4. Contents of Mellanox OFED ESXi Package
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MLNX-EN-ESX package contains:
o MLNX-OFED-ESX-1.9.10.0-10EM-550.0.0.1331820 - Hypervisor bundle For ESXi 5.5Ux
o MLNX-OFED-ESX-1.9.10.0-10EM-510.0.0.799733  - Hypervisor bundle For ESXi 5.1Ux


o Each bundle contains the following kernel modules:
 - mlx4_en (ConnectX family Ethernet driver)
 - mlx4_core (ConnectX family low-level PCI driver)
 - ib-addr (IB Address Translation)                 
 - ib-cm (InfiniBand Connection Manager support)                        
 - ib-core (Core kernel InfiniBand API)                    
 - ib-mad (Kernel IB MAD API)                    
 - ib-sa (InfiniBand subnet administration query support)                        
 - ib-umad (InfiniBand userspace MAD packet access)                 
 - mlx4-ib (Mellanox Technologies ConnectX core driver)                
 - rdma-cm (DMA Connection Manager support)              
 - ib-iser (Mellanox Technologies iSER driver)                 


The driver package is distributed as an offline bundle (.zip file). 

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5. Supported HCAs
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This release supports Mellanox Technologies Ethetnet HCA:
 - ConnectX-3 Pro: FW 2.30.8000 and above 
 - ConnectX-3:     FW 2.11.0500 and above
 - ConnectX-2:     FW 2.9.1200 and above 
   
Please note that older FW versions were not tested with this release. 

For the latest firmware versions, visit:
http://www.mellanox.com/page/vmware_matrix
or
http://www.mellanox.com/supportdownloader/

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6. Known Issues
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 - Updating the driver from the last certified driver (1.6.1-1 for ESXi5.1) 
   is not supported. 
   Workaround:
   Uninstall any privious drive prior to installing the new driver manually. 

 - Frequent vSwitch MTU changes or link/unlink operations during background 
   heavy stress traffic might cause traffic loss.
	
 - WoL is not supported in 40Gb mode.
  
 - Netdump is not supported in ESXi5.1Ux due to an ESXi5.1Ux issue with 
   pseudo devices.
  
 - Frequent changes of ring size during background heavy stress traffic 
   is not supported.
  
 - iSER: Manually unloading and reloading mlx4 low-level drivers may stop 
   iSER from working. 
  
 - iSER: ESXi stops trying to reconnect a target that is lost for a long 
   period of time.
   See VMWare KB:
   http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2004684
  
 - iSER: RoCE does not work against MLNX_OFED_LINUX-2.1 GA.
 
 - iSER: Rescanning vmhbas while creating and deleting targets may freeze the scan.
 
 - Setting/changing the link speed is currently not supported.
 
 - On some adamper cards, when running the "esxcli network nic down -n <port number>" command, 
   the interface does not display the link speed as 0Mb.   

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7. Fixed Issues
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None