NVIDIA DOCA Profiles
The following document provides an introduction to the various supported DOCA-Host profiles.
NVIDIA DOCA™ can be installed on the host and used by a variety of customers who have different workloads and requirements. The DOCA-Host package includes drivers, libraries, and tools to support NVIDIA® BlueField® Networking Platform and NVIDIA® ConnectX® SmartNIC, Ethernet and InfiniBand, with both kernel and user-space components. Depending on their specific needs, customers may choose not to install the full DOCA-Host package on their host server but only the subset of components and tools relevant for their use case (whether to have a smaller installation size, lower integration/validation effort, etc).
To support the different use cases, DOCA includes DOCA-Host Installation Profiles, which are a subset of the full DOCA installation. DOCA-Host profiles are validated and tested installation packages. The following are the available DOCA profiles:
doca-all
doca-networking
doca-ofed
doca-roce
DOCA-Host supports the following NVIDIA devices:
BlueField-3
BlueField-2
ConnectX-7
ConnectX-6 DX
ConnectX-6 LX
ConnectX-6
ConnectX-5
ConnectX-4 LX
ConnectX-4
For hardware details on these devices, refer to the following pages:
DOCA functionality is limited by the specific device capabilities.
For information about DOCA Meta-Packages please refer to section "DOCA Meta-packages" in the NVIDIA DOCA Installation Guide for Linux.
The full DOCA-Host installation is intended for users who wish to utilize the full extent of DOCA libs and drivers.
This profile is the super-set of components, which also includes the content of doca-ofed and doca-networking.
All DOCA libraries, drivers and tools are included in doca-all.
When installing doca-all on host, BlueField Platforms can utilize all DOCA libs and drivers whereas ConnectX devices can utilize only doca-ofed and doca-networking subset of functions from within the super-set of doca-all, depending on the device's capabilities.
The doca-networking profile is intended for users who wish to benefit only from the networking functionality of DOCA.
The content of the doca-networking package is the following:
MLNX_OFED
DOCA Core
MLNX-DPDK
OVS-DOCA
DOCA Flow
BlueField DPUs, BlueField SuperNICs, and ConnectX devices can utilize all included libs and drivers in the doca-networking profile, based on the device's capabilities.
This profile is intended for users who wish to have the same user experience and content as MLNX_OFED but with DOCA package. doca-ofed installs the MLNX_OFED drivers and tools and does not include any other DOCA components.
The content of the doca-ofed package is:
MLNX_OFED drivers and tools
BlueField Platforms and ConnectX devices can utilize only the drivers in doca-ofed, based on the device's capabilities. No added DOCA libs are supported with any of the devices with doca-ofed profile installation.
The doca-roce (RDMA over Converged Ethernet) profile is intended for users who wish to benefit only from the Ethernet and RDMA functionality. doca-roce is a subset of doca-ofed.
The content for doca-roce package is:
rdma-core
ofed-scripts
mlnx-tools
mlnx-ofa_kernel
libibverbs
libibumad
librdmacm
perftest
BlueField platforms and ConnectX devices can utilize the drivers in doca-roce. No added DOCA libs are supported with any of the devices with doca-roce profile installation.
Selecting the right DOCA-Host installation profile is important to fully utilize the capabilities of your BlueField Platforms or ConnectX.
The functionality of DOCA-Host is limited by the device capabilities (e.g., ConnectX devices cannot utilize DOCA libs such as DPA, even if doca-all is installed on the host).
For BlueField devices:
It is recommended to use doca-all
If you require the smallest installation package for networking-only purposes, use doca-networking
For MLNX_OFED-like installation, use doca-ofed (no additional DOCA functionality)
For ROCE functionality only, install doca-roce
For ConnectX devices:
It is recommended to use doca-networking
For future-proof and mixed BlueField/ConnectX deployments, use doca-all
For MLNX_OFED-like installation use doca-ofed (no additional DOCA functionality)
For ROCE functionality only, install doca-roce
DOCA-Host can be installed on specific host OSs. Each of the Host Installation Profiles has specific OSs on which is can be installed as specified in section "Supported Host OS per DOCA-Host Installation Profile".
Follow the instructions under section " Installing Software on Host" in th e NVIDIA DOCA Installation Guide for Linux.
Refer to the "General Support" page of the release notes for information.