Chapter 12. Switching Bluefield-2 from DPU to NIC


You can switch the Bluefield-2 network device from data processing unit (DPU) mode to network interface controller (NIC) mode.

Before you perform any tasks in the following documentation, ensure that you installed the SR-IOV Network Operator.

Use the following procedure to switch Bluefield-2 from data processing units (DPU) mode to network interface controller (NIC) mode.

Important

Currently, only switching Bluefield-2 from DPU to NIC mode is supported. Switching from NIC mode to DPU mode is unsupported.

Prerequisites

  • You have installed the SR-IOV Network Operator. For more information, see "Installing SR-IOV Network Operator".
  • You have updated Bluefield-2 to the latest firmware. For more information, see Firmware for NVIDIA BlueField-2.

Procedure

  1. Add the following label to each of your compute nodes by entering the following command. You must run the command for each compute node.

    $ oc label node <node_name> node-role.kubernetes.io/sriov=
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

where:

node_name
Refers to the name of a compute node.
  1. Create a machine config pool for the SR-IOV Network Operator, for example:

    apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
    kind: MachineConfigPool
    metadata:
      name: sriov
    spec:
      machineConfigSelector:
        matchExpressions:
        - {key: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/role, operator: In, values: [worker,sriov]}
      nodeSelector:
        matchLabels:
          node-role.kubernetes.io/sriov: ""
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  2. Apply the following machineconfig.yaml file to the compute nodes:

    apiVersion: machineconfiguration.openshift.io/v1
    kind: MachineConfig
    metadata:
      labels:
        machineconfiguration.openshift.io/role: sriov
      name: 99-bf2-dpu
    spec:
      config:
        ignition:
          version: 3.2.0
        storage:
          files:
          - contents:
              source: data:text/plain;charset=utf-8;base64,ZmluZF9jb250YWluZXIoKSB7CiAgY3JpY3RsIHBzIC1vIGpzb24gfCBqcSAtciAnLmNvbnRhaW5lcnNbXSB8IHNlbGVjdCgubWV0YWRhdGEubmFtZT09InNyaW92LW5ldHdvcmstY29uZmlnLWRhZW1vbiIpIHwgLmlkJwp9CnVudGlsIG91dHB1dD0kKGZpbmRfY29udGFpbmVyKTsgW1sgLW4gIiRvdXRwdXQiIF1dOyBkbwogIGVjaG8gIndhaXRpbmcgZm9yIGNvbnRhaW5lciB0byBjb21lIHVwIgogIHNsZWVwIDE7CmRvbmUKISBzdWRvIGNyaWN0bCBleGVjICRvdXRwdXQgL2JpbmRhdGEvc2NyaXB0cy9iZjItc3dpdGNoLW1vZGUuc2ggIiRAIgo=
            mode: 0755
            overwrite: true
            path: /etc/default/switch_in_sriov_config_daemon.sh
        systemd:
          units:
          - name: dpu-switch.service
            enabled: true
            contents: |
              [Unit]
              Description=Switch BlueField2 card to NIC/DPU mode
              RequiresMountsFor=%t/containers
              Wants=network.target
              After=network-online.target kubelet.service
              [Service]
              SuccessExitStatus=0 120
              RemainAfterExit=True
              ExecStart=/bin/bash -c '/etc/default/switch_in_sriov_config_daemon.sh nic || shutdown -r now' 
    1
    
              Type=oneshot
              [Install]
              WantedBy=multi-user.target
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
    1
    Optional: The PCI address of a specific card can optionally be specified, for example ExecStart=/bin/bash -c '/etc/default/switch_in_sriov_config_daemon.sh nic 0000:5e:00.0 || echo done'. By default, the first device is selected. If there is more than one device, you must specify which PCI address to be used. The PCI address must be the same on all nodes that are switching Bluefield-2 from DPU mode to NIC mode.
  3. Wait for the compute nodes to restart. After restarting, the Bluefield-2 network device on the compute nodes is switched into NIC mode.
  4. Optional: You might need to restart the host hardware because most recent Bluefield-2 firmware releases require a hardware restart to switch into NIC mode.
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