1. Introduction
The software covered by these release notes is targeted to be run on IPU-Machine units with a few additional server side management/maintenance tools which will be installed on the server.
The following terms are used in these release notes:
Bow-2000: A 1U IPU-Machine containing four Bow IPUs providing machine learning compute, with low-latency IPU-Fabric interconnect, and an IPU gateway controller supporting host disaggregation. Bow-2000s are the building blocks of Bow Pod systems (directly attached to a host server or in switched systems with one or more host servers).
IPU-M2000: A 1U IPU-Machine containing four Colossus GC200 IPUs providing machine learning compute, with low-latency IPU-Fabric interconnect, and an IPU gateway controller supporting host disaggregation. IPU-M2000s are the building blocks of IPU-POD systems (directly attached to a host server or in switched systems with one or more host servers).
Bow Pod: A collection of interconnected Bow-2000s with one or more servers and networking switches. A Bow Pod allows all the IPUs in the IPU-Machines to communicate and synchronise using IPU-to-IPU connections. The IPUs can be partitioned into “virtual” Bow Pods (vPODs) using the V-IPU controller software.
IPU-POD: A collection of interconnected IPU-M2000s with one or more servers and networking switches. An IPU-POD allows all the IPUs in the IPU-Machines to communicate and synchronise using IPU-to-IPU connections. The IPUs can be partitioned into “virtual” IPU-PODs (vPODs) using the V-IPU controller software.
Pod: Version agnostic name of IPU-POD and Bow Pod.
IPU-Machine: Version agnostic name of IPU-M2000 and Bow-2000.
IPU-M software: The system software is a bundle of firmware and software needed for the operation of various components on the IPU-Machine. This software is upgraded using the provided
rack_tool.
2. Components
The IPU-Machine system software 2.6.0 contains the following components:
Package |
Version |
Description |
|---|---|---|
IPU-Gateway platform software |
2.6.0 |
IPU-Gateway software for IPU-Gateway SoC part of the IPU-Machine. |
IPU-Gateway FPGA |
2.0.1 |
IPU-Gateway FPGA code for optimized CPU/memory, scaleout and data center connectivity. |
IPUoF server |
1.11.0 |
IPU over Fabric (IPUoF) server, a transport layer used by Poplar SDK for host-to-IPU communication. |
V-IPU agent |
1.18.0 |
IPU-Machine resident agent part of the V-IPU control and management stack. V-IPU host-resident software is released as a separate package. See the release notes for that package with same version number as the agent. |
ICU firmware |
2.5.9 |
Intelligence control unit (ICU) micro-controller firmware for booting/controlling the IPUs. |
BMC software |
gc-1.41.0 |
OpenBMC based baseboard management controller (BMC) SoC software for the service CPU part of the IPU-Machine. |
System FPGA |
0x18 |
System FPGA code controlling power domains, reset and glue logic. |
Maintenance tools |
2.11.6 |
Utility for management and software upgrade of IPU-Machine. |
3. Scope of this document
This document contains the release notes for the IPU-Machine system software version 2.6.0 for the products listed later as supported in Graphcore’s IPU product family.
4. Product support and compatibility matrix
4.1. Support levels
We define the following levels of support:
- Supported:
These products are actively worked on: they will receive new features, general updates and security updates.
Notice of deprecation will be made in advance for supported products.
- Deprecated:
These products will only receive security updates.
These products are expected to work with the indicated products however correctness is not guaranteed.
It is advised not to upgrade to this software version, unless strictly necessary.
In the future, these products can move to the not supported status, without further notice.
Support level will reflect the deprecated status.
- Not supported:
These products are not expected to work with this release.
No support will be provided.
Important
Deprecated products can be moved to the not supported status without further notice.
4.2. Hardware support level
This table details which hardware platform revisions are supported by the IPU-Machine system software 2.6.0.
Model |
Revision |
Support level |
Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
IPU-M |
1.x |
Not Supported |
|
IPU-M2000 |
2.1.x |
Supported |
|
Bow-2000 |
2.2.x |
Supported |
4.3. Hardware qualification
This table details which hardware configurations have been used to qualify the IPU-Machine system software 2.6.0.
Configuration |
Support level |
Notes |
|---|---|---|
IPU-POD16 |
Supported |
|
IPU-POD64 |
Supported |
|
IPU-POD4 DA |
Supported |
|
IPU-POD16 DA |
Supported |
|
Bow Pod16 |
Supported |
|
Bow Pod64 |
Supported |
|
Bow Pod4 DA |
Supported |
|
Bow Pod16 DA |
Supported |
4.4. SDK qualification
This table details which Poplar SDK versions have been qualified with IPU-Machine system software 2.6.0.
All Poplar SDK release notes list updated compatibility with IPU-Machine system software.
SDK version |
Support level |
Notes |
|---|---|---|
2.6.0 |
Supported |
4.5. V-IPU qualification
This table details which V-IPU controller software versions have been qualified with the IPU-Machine system software 2.6.0.
The V-IPU agent that is part of this IPU-Machine system software is required to match the version of the V-IPU controller.
V-IPU version |
Support level |
Notes |
|---|---|---|
1.18.0 |
Supported |
4.6. IPU-M software upgrade path
This table details the list of upgrade paths supported by the IPU-Machine system software 2.6.0.
Base install |
Support level |
Notes |
|---|---|---|
v2.5.1 |
Supported |
Upgrade and downgrade |
v2.5.0 |
Supported |
Upgrade and downgrade |
v2.4.5 |
Supported |
Upgrade |
4.7. IPU-M software operating system support matrix
This table details the list of host server operating systems supported by the IPU-Machine system software 2.6.0.
This lists the installed versions which can be safely upgraded to this release. Upgrades have only been tested, and are only supported, from these versions. If you have an earlier version installed, you should first upgrade to a supported version, in order to then complete the upgrade to the desired target version.
Operating system |
Support level |
Notes |
|---|---|---|
Ubuntu 18.04 |
Supported |
|
Ubuntu 20.04 |
Supported |
|
CentOS 7.6 |
Supported |
|
RHEL 7.9 |
Supported |
|
RHEL 8.4 |
Supported |
|
Debian 11 |
Supported |
Supported for Pod systems only |
5. Documentation
For Pod hardware platforms the following documentation is available:
Hardware documents: Documentation of all Pod product documents relevant for this release note
V-IPU Administrator Guide and V-IPU User Guide: Configuring and using V-IPU
rack_tool: Tool for doing operations related to one or more IPU-Machines in a rack
BMC User Guide: Functions and the interfaces provided by the BMC software on an IPU-Machine
6. Known issues & limitations
Downgrade from 2.6.0 to older versions of IPU-M software is not supported out of the box for Bow-2000.
Maintenance-tools: hosts running OpenSSH version 8.8 or higher will, by default, reject the BMC SSH public keys (RSA keys are considered vulnerable now). With T65275 we provide a warning about hosts running problematic OpenSSH versions and suggest a way to fix it.