Platform Support

On this page

Overview

Use this page to confirm that your hardware, operating system, and Kubernetes platform are supported by NVIDIA Network Operator before deployment.

Support terms used on this page:

  • Supported — A configuration that NVIDIA maintains and backs for this release.

  • Validated — A hardware or software configuration that NVIDIA has tested with this release.

  • GA (Generally Available) — Production-ready support tier.

  • Tech Preview — Limited testing; not recommended for production deployments.

Versioning and Lifecycle

NVIDIA Network Operator uses calendar versioning in the form YY.MM.PP (for example, 26.4.0). The first two fields identify the major version and release timeframe; the third field identifies the patch version, used for critical bug and CVE fixes.

When a new major version is released, the previous major version enters a Deprecated state and receives only patch updates for critical fixes. Earlier major versions reach End of Support and no longer receive updates.

Version

Status

26.4.x

Supported

26.1.x

Deprecated

25.10.x and lower

End of Support

Upgrades are supported within a major release, or to the next major release. For upgrade procedures and operational guidance, see Life Cycle Management.

Note

The product lifecycle and versioning are subject to change in future releases.

Important Limitations

Review the following limitations before deployment:

  • Firmware reset on BMC-controlled platforms — NVIDIA DGX/HGX GB200 NVL72, B200, and B300 systems require additional configuration so that firmware updates apply without a reboot loop. See Platforms with external BMC (DGX, HGX GB200/B200/B300, Vera Rubin GB).

  • No GPUDirect RDMA on Arm-based validated configurations — NVIDIA IGX Orin and NVIDIA Grace ARM Server are validated for RoCE only, without GPUDirect RDMA. See Support for GPUDirect RDMA.

  • Precompiled DOCA-OFED driver containers are currently unsigned.

  • Precompiled DOCA-OFED kernel-flavor support — Only the Ubuntu generic kernel flavor is GA. The nvidia, aws, azure, and oracle flavors are Tech Preview.

  • For per-release known issues, see the Release Notes.

Prerequisites

Component

Version

Notes

Kubernetes

>=1.31 and <=1.35

Helm

v3.5+

For installation methods, refer to the official Helm website.

Node Feature Discovery

>=0.15.6 and <=0.17.0

When deploying the Network Operator and GPU Operator on the same cluster, ensure only one instance of Node Feature Discovery (NFD) is installed. We recommend using the version included with the GPU Operator.

System Requirements

  • RDMA-capable NVIDIA network adapters

    • NVIDIA ConnectX NICs and SuperNICs

    • NVIDIA BlueField Networking Platforms

  • NVIDIA GPU Operator v25.3.x or newer – required for workloads that use NVIDIA GPUs and GPUDirect RDMA. See Support for GPUDirect RDMA.

Supported NVIDIA Network Adapters

The following adapters have been tested and validated with NVIDIA Network Operator:

Product Family

Ethernet

InfiniBand

Max Port Speed

Validated Protocols / Modes

Notes

NVIDIA ConnectX-6 NIC

Yes

Yes

200 Gb/s

IB RDMA, RoCE

—

NVIDIA ConnectX-6 Dx NIC

Yes

No

200 Gb/s

RoCE

—

NVIDIA ConnectX-7 NIC

Yes

Yes

400 Gb/s

IB RDMA, RoCE

—

NVIDIA ConnectX-8 SuperNIC

Yes

Yes

800 Gb/s

IB RDMA, RoCE

—

NVIDIA ConnectX-9 SuperNIC

Yes

Yes

800 Gb/s

IB RDMA, RoCE

—

NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPU

Yes

No

200 Gb/s

RoCE

NIC mode only

NVIDIA BlueField-3 SuperNIC

Yes

No

400 Gb/s

RoCE

NIC mode only

Supported NVIDIA Data Center Systems

The following NVIDIA Data Center systems have been tested and validated with NVIDIA Network Operator:

System

CPU Architecture

GPU Architecture

Network Adapter(s)

Operating System(s)

Notes

NVIDIA Grace ARM Server

Arm (NVIDIA Grace)

NVIDIA Hopper

BlueField-3 (NIC Mode)

Ubuntu 22.04 (Arm64) / OCP 4.17 / SLES 15.6

GA (RoCE only, without GPUDirect RDMA)

NVIDIA IGX Orin

Arm (NVIDIA Orin)

NVIDIA Ampere

ConnectX-7

Ubuntu 22.04 (Arm64)

GA (RoCE only, without GPUDirect RDMA)

NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server

x86

NVIDIA Blackwell

BlueField-3 SuperNIC (NIC mode) / ConnectX-8

Ubuntu 22.04 / 24.04 (x86) / Red Hat OpenShift

GA

NVIDIA DGX/HGX B200

x86

NVIDIA Blackwell

BlueField-3 SuperNIC (NIC mode) / ConnectX-7

Ubuntu 22.04 / 24.04 (x86) / Red Hat OpenShift

GA. Firmware reset required (see Platforms with external BMC (DGX, HGX GB200/B200/B300, Vera Rubin GB))

NVIDIA DGX/HGX B300

x86

NVIDIA Blackwell

ConnectX-8 SuperNIC

Ubuntu 22.04 / 24.04 (x86) / Red Hat OpenShift

GA. Firmware reset required (see Platforms with external BMC (DGX, HGX GB200/B200/B300, Vera Rubin GB))

NVIDIA DGX/HGX GB200 NVL72

Arm (NVIDIA Grace)

NVIDIA Blackwell

ConnectX-7

Ubuntu 24.04 (Arm64) / Red Hat OpenShift

GA. Firmware reset required (see Platforms with external BMC (DGX, HGX GB200/B200/B300, Vera Rubin GB))

NVIDIA DGX/HGX GB300 NVL72

Arm (NVIDIA Grace)

NVIDIA Blackwell

ConnectX-8

Ubuntu 24.04 (Arm64) / Red Hat OpenShift

GA. Firmware reset required (see Platforms with external BMC (DGX, HGX GB200/B200/B300, Vera Rubin GB))

Supported Operating Systems and Kubernetes Platforms

NVIDIA Network Operator has been validated on the following OS and platform combinations for Ethernet (RoCE) and InfiniBand (IB RDMA):

Note

Kubernetes support for the NVIDIA Spectrum-X Reference Architecture (RA) is limited to a subset of OS and platform combinations. For details, refer to the NVIDIA Spectrum-X documentation.

Operating System

Upstream Kubernetes

Red Hat OpenShift

Rancher RKE2

Canonical MicroK8s

Nutanix NKP

Container Runtime

Notes

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

1.31–1.35

—

—

1.31–1.35

2.12–2.15

Containerd

—

Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

1.31–1.35

—

—

1.31–1.35

2.12–2.15

Containerd

RT kernel support

Red Hat CoreOS

—

4.17–4.21

—

—

—

CRI-O

RT kernel support

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10.0 / 9.6 / 9.4

1.31–1.35

—

—

—

—

Containerd, CRI-O

RT kernel support

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.10 / 8.8

1.31–1.35

—

—

—

—

Containerd, CRI-O

RT kernel support

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP7

1.31–1.35

—

1.31–1.35

—

—

Containerd

Supported for Kubernetes and Rancher deployments

Supported Container Runtimes

NVIDIA Network Operator has been validated in the following scenarios:

Operating System

Containerd

CRI-O

Notes

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Yes

No

Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

Yes

No

Red Hat CoreOS

No

Yes

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9

Yes

Yes

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8

Yes

Yes

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10

Yes

Yes

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP7

Yes

No

NVIDIA Spectrum-X Ethernet Networking Platform

NVIDIA Network Operator has been validated with the following NVIDIA Spectrum-X Reference Architecture (RA) versions:

Note

For details on supported topologies, NIC hardware, software components, and version-specific notes, refer to the NVIDIA Spectrum-X documentation.

Spectrum-X RA Version

Topologies and NIC Hardware

Kubernetes Versions

Operating Systems

Notes

2.2

  • Single-Plane (ConnectX-7 or BlueField-3 SuperNIC)

  • Dual- or Quad-plane (NVIDIA ConnectX-8 SuperNIC)

Upstream Kubernetes (1.31–1.35)

  • Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

  • Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

Small RA, Software Multi-Plane

2.1

  • Single-Plane (ConnectX-7 or BlueField-3 SuperNIC)

  • Dual- or Quad-plane (NVIDIA ConnectX-8 SuperNIC)

Upstream Kubernetes (1.31–1.35)

  • Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

  • Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

Small RA, Software Multi-Plane

Support for KubeVirt SR-IOV Passthrough

NVIDIA Network Operator supports attaching SR-IOV Virtual Functions (VFs) to KubeVirt virtual machines via VFIO PCI passthrough. For deployment instructions, see KubeVirt SR-IOV Integration.

Operating System

Kubernetes

KubeVirt

Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

1.31–1.35

v1.8.2+

Not supported

Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

1.31–1.35

v1.8.2+

Not supported

Key limitations:

  • VFIO passthrough requires IOMMU-capable hardware (Intel VT-d or AMD-Vi) with IOMMU enabled at boot.

  • Live migration is not supported for VMs that use SR-IOV VFIO passthrough.

  • Host-side RDMA is not available for VFIO-passed VFs; RDMA inside the guest is provided by the mlx5_core driver shipped with the guest image.

Support for GPUDirect RDMA

NVIDIA Network Operator enables GPUDirect RDMA between NVIDIA GPUs and supported NICs/SuperNICs when deployed together with NVIDIA GPU Operator. For deployment instructions, see Network Operator Deployment for GPUDirect Workloads. For GPU Operator-side support details, see NVIDIA GPU Operator Platform Support — Support for GPUDirect RDMA.

Requirements:

  • NVIDIA GPU Operator v25.3.x or newer

  • NVIDIA DOCA-OFED Driver v5.5-1.0.3.2 or newer

  • nvidia_peermem kernel module (auto-loaded by recent NVIDIA GPU drivers)

  • Supported NVIDIA GPU (Ampere, Hopper, or Blackwell)

  • Supported NVIDIA NICs (NVIDIA ConnectX or BlueField)

Operating System

Kubernetes

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

1.31–1.35

Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

1.31–1.35

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10.0 / 9.6 / 9.4

1.31–1.35

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.10 / 8.8

1.31–1.35

Red Hat CoreOS

OpenShift 4.17–4.21

For background on the underlying technology, see the NVIDIA GPUDirect RDMA documentation.

Support for GPUDirect Storage

NVIDIA Network Operator provides the RDMA networking fabric (RoCE and InfiniBand) required by GPUDirect Storage (GDS). GDS-compatible storage clients operate over the RDMA fabric provisioned by Network Operator.

Warning

With the DOCA-OFED driver container and ENABLE_NFSRDMA=true, host-side NVMe-over-RDMA cannot run concurrently — DOCA-OFED’s ib_core conflicts with the inbox nvme_rdma module. The DOCA-Host package install path is unaffected, as is local-NVMe storage.

For configuration details (including the ENABLE_NFSRDMA setting and the NVMe inbox kernel module workaround), see DOCA-OFED Driver Container. For background on the underlying technology and the list of GDS-compatible storage clients and version requirements, see the NVIDIA GPUDirect Storage documentation.

Supported Precompiled Container Images for DOCA-OFED Drivers

Overview

To save startup time and operational effort, precompiled DOCA-OFED driver container images are available for common OS/flavor/kernel/architecture variants.

The container image tag pattern used for common variants is: driver_ver-container_ver-kernel_ver-flavor-os-arch. For example: 24.07-0.6.1.0-0-6.8.0-49-generic-ubuntu24.04-amd64

Note

For the generic flavor of Ubuntu, the default kernel version is used for precompiling (for example, 6.8.0-31 for Ubuntu 24.04). For all other flavors, the latest kernel version available at the time of DOCA packaging and release is used.

Supported Operating Systems

Currently precompiled DOCA-OFED driver container images are provided for the following operating systems:

  • Ubuntu 24.04 (amd64/arm64)

  • Ubuntu 22.04 (amd64/arm64)

Limitations

  • NVIDIA supports precompiled driver containers for the most recently released DOCA-OFED GA drivers.

  • NVIDIA builds precompiled driver containers for generic, nvidia, aws, azure, and oracle kernel flavors.

  • Precompiled driver containers are currently unsigned.

  • If your hosts use a different kernel variant, you can create a custom precompiled driver container and host it in your own container registry. Please refer to the Precompiled Container Build Instructions for NVIDIA DOCA-OFED Driver Container section.

Warning

  • Only generic kernel variant is tested and supported as a GA.

  • nvidia, aws, azure, and oracle kernel variants are supported as a Tech Preview and have limited testing.

Network Operator Component Matrix

The following component versions are deployed by NVIDIA Network Operator:

Component

Origin

Repository

Image Name

Tag

NVAIE

Notes

NVIDIA Network Operator

NVIDIA (OSS)

nvcr.io/nvstaging/mellanox

network-operator

v26.4.0-beta.9

Yes

NVIDIA Network Operator

NVIDIA (OSS)

nvcr.io/nvstaging/mellanox

network-operator-init-container

network-operator-v26.4.0-beta.9

Yes

DOCA-OFED Driver Container

NVIDIA (EULA)

nvcr.io/nvstaging/mellanox

doca-driver

doca3.4.0-26.04-0.8.0.0-0

Yes

LTS version: doca3.2.2-25.10-2.4.1.0-4

RDMA Shared Device Plugin

NVIDIA (OSS)

nvcr.io/nvstaging/mellanox

k8s-rdma-shared-dev-plugin

network-operator-v26.4.0-beta.9

Yes

IB Kubernetes Plugin

NVIDIA (OSS)

nvcr.io/nvstaging/mellanox

ib-kubernetes

network-operator-v26.4.0-beta.9

Yes

IP Over Infiniband (IPoIB) CNI plugin

NVIDIA (OSS)

nvcr.io/nvstaging/mellanox

ipoib-cni

network-operator-v26.4.0-beta.9

Yes

NVIDIA IPAM Plugin

NVIDIA (OSS)

nvcr.io/nvstaging/mellanox

nvidia-k8s-ipam

network-operator-v26.4.0-beta.9

Yes

NVIDIA NIC Feature Discovery

NVIDIA (OSS)

nvcr.io/nvstaging/mellanox

nic-feature-discovery

network-operator-v26.4.0-beta.9

Yes

DOCA Telemetry Service (DTS)

NVIDIA (EULA)

nvcr.io/nvidia/doca

doca_telemetry

1.24.3-doca3.3.0-host

Yes

Node Feature Discovery

Community (OSS)

nvcr.io/nvstaging/mellanox

node-feature-discovery

network-operator-v26.4.0-beta.9

Yes

Optionally deployed. May already be present in the cluster with proper configuration.

SRIOV Network Operator

Community (OSS)

nvcr.io/nvstaging/mellanox

sriov-network-operator

network-operator-v26.4.0-beta.9

Yes

SRIOV Network Operator

Community (OSS)

nvcr.io/nvstaging/mellanox

sriov-network-operator-webhook

network-operator-v26.4.0-beta.9

Yes

SRIOV Network Operator

Community (OSS)

nvcr.io/nvstaging/mellanox

sriov-network-operator-config-daemon

network-operator-v26.4.0-beta.9

Yes

SR-IOV Network Device Plugin

Community (OSS)

nvcr.io/nvstaging/mellanox

sriov-network-device-plugin

network-operator-v26.4.0-beta.9

Yes

SR-IOV CNI plugin

Community (OSS)

nvcr.io/nvstaging/mellanox

sriov-cni

network-operator-v26.4.0-beta.9

Yes

InfiniBand SR-IOV CNI plugin

Community (OSS)

nvcr.io/nvstaging/mellanox

ib-sriov-cni

network-operator-v26.4.0-beta.9

Yes

K8s CNI network plugins

Community (OSS)

nvcr.io/nvstaging/mellanox

plugins

network-operator-v26.4.0-beta.9

Yes

Multus CNI

Community (OSS)

nvcr.io/nvstaging/mellanox

multus-cni

network-operator-v26.4.0-beta.9

Yes

RDMA CNI plugin

Community (OSS)

nvcr.io/nvstaging/mellanox

rdma-cni

network-operator-v26.4.0-beta.9

Yes

Open vSwitch CNI plugin

Community (OSS)

nvcr.io/nvstaging/mellanox

ovs-cni-plugin

network-operator-v26.4.0-beta.9

No

NVIDIA NIC Configuration Operator

NVIDIA (OSS)

nvcr.io/nvstaging/mellanox

nic-configuration-operator

network-operator-v26.4.0-beta.9

No

NVIDIA NIC Configuration Operator

NVIDIA (OSS)

nvcr.io/nvstaging/mellanox

nic-configuration-operator-daemon

network-operator-v26.4.0-beta.9

No

NVIDIA Maintenance Operator

NVIDIA (OSS)

nvcr.io/nvstaging/mellanox

maintenance-operator

network-operator-v26.4.0-beta.9

No

NVIDIA Kubernetes Launch Kit

NVIDIA (OSS)

nvcr.io/nvstaging/mellanox

k8s-launch-kit

v26.4.0-beta.9

No

NVIDIA Spectrum-X Operator

NVIDIA (OSS)

nvcr.io/nvstaging/mellanox

spectrum-x-operator

network-operator-v26.4.0-beta.9

No

DRA Driver SR-IOV

Community (OSS)

nvcr.io/nvstaging/mellanox

dra-driver-sriov

network-operator-v26.4.0-beta.9

No

Additional Supported Tools and Integrations

Container management tools:

Orchestration & resource scheduling:

Note

Run:ai requires the NVIDIA Network Operator as a prerequisite. To configure NVIDIA Network Operator refer to the Run:ai cluster requirements documentation for more information.