Platform Support

Prerequisites

Component	Version	Notes
Kubernetes	>=1.27 and <=1.30.4
Helm	v3.5+	For information and methods of Helm installation, please refer to the official Helm Website.
Node Feature Discovery	>=0.15.6 and <=0.16.3	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.

Network Operator Component Matrix

The following component versions are deployed by the Network Operator:

Component	Container Image	Notes
Node Feature Discovery	registry.k8s.io/nfd/node-feature-discovery:v0.15.6	Optionally deployed. May already be present in the cluster with proper configuration.
NVIDIA DOCA Driver container	nvcr.io/nvidia/mellanox/doca-driver:25.01-0.3.9.0-0
k8s-rdma-shared-device-plugin	ghcr.io/mellanox/k8s-rdma-shared-dev-plugin:v1.5.2
sriov-network-device-plugin	ghcr.io/k8snetworkplumbingwg/sriov-network-device-plugin:v3.8.0
containernetworking CNI plugins	ghcr.io/k8snetworkplumbingwg/plugins:v1.5.0
whereabouts CNI	ghcr.io/k8snetworkplumbingwg/whereabouts:v0.7.0
multus CNI	ghcr.io/k8snetworkplumbingwg/multus-cni:v4.1.0
IPoIB CNI	ghcr.io/mellanox/ipoib-cni:v1.2.0
IB Kubernetes	ghcr.io/mellanox/ib-kubernetes:v1.1.0
NV IPAM Plugin	ghcr.io/mellanox/nvidia-k8s-ipam:v0.2.0
NIC Feature Discovery	ghcr.io/mellanox/nic-feature-discovery:v0.0.1
DOCA Telemetry	nvcr.io/nvidia/doca/doca_telemetry:1.16.5-doca2.6.0-host

System Requirements

• NVIDIA RDMA-capable network adapters:

  • NVIDIA ConnectX NICs

    • ConnectX-5 or newer

  • NVIDIA BlueField Network Platforms

    • BlueField-2 DPU (NIC mode)

    • BlueField-3 DPU (NIC mode)

    • BlueField-3 SuperNIC (NIC mode)

• NVIDIA GPU Operator Version 24.3.x or newer (required for the workloads using NVIDIA GPUs and GPUDirect RDMA technology)

Tested Network Adapters

The following network adapters have been tested with the Network Operator:

• ConnectX-6 Dx

• ConnectX-7

• BlueField-2 NIC Mode

• BlueField-3 NIC Mode

Supported ARM Based Platforms

The following ARM based systems has been tested with Network Operator:

System	Network Adapters	OS	Notes
NVIDIA IGX Orin	ConnectX-7	Ubuntu 22.04 (ARM64)	GA (RoCE only, without GPUDirect RDMA)
NVIDIA Grace ARM Server	BlueField-3 NIC Mode	Ubuntu 22.04 (ARM64) / OCP 4.16	GA (RoCE only, without GPUDirect RDMA)

Supported Operating Systems and Kubernetes Platforms

NVIDIA Network Operator has been validated in the following scenarios:

Operating System	Kubernetes	Red Hat OpenShift	Notes
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS	1.27-1.30.4
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS	1.27-1.30.4		RT kernels support
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS	1.27-1.30.4
Red Hat Core OS		4.14-4.16	RT kernels support
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.4, 9.3, 9.2, 9.0	1.27-1.30.4
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.10, 8.9, 8.8, 8.6	1.27-1.30.4		RT kernels support

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
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS	Yes	No
Red Hat Core OS	No	Yes
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9	Yes	Yes
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8	Yes	Yes

Supported Precompiled Container Images for DOCA Drivers

Overview

To save startup time and operational effort, precompiled DOCA 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 (e.g. 6.8.0-31 for Ubuntu 24.04). Whereas for all other flavors, their latest (at time of DOCA packaging/release) Kernel version is used.

Supported Operating Systems

Currently precompiled DOCA 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 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 Precompiled Container Build Instructions for NVIDIA DOCA 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.