Doca Bf4 Deployment

DOCA BlueField-4 (BF4) deployment

> ⚠️ WARNING — irreversible hardware operations. This skill guides

> operators through potentially destructive, irreversible BlueField-4

> hardware operations: PLDM firmware burns, ISO reflashes, power

> cycles, and BMC factory resets. These can brick firmware, corrupt

> boot media, or cause production outages. Do not proceed without a

> maintenance window and a tested rollback plan. Every mutating step is

> governed by

> doca-hardware-safety, which

> MUST be loaded alongside this skill before any destructive action.

>

> Before executing any mutating step — PLDM firmware burn, ISO reflash,

> power cycle, or BMC factory reset — the agent MUST show the exact

> command and its blast radius (which device, what becomes unavailable,

> whether it is reversible) and obtain the user's explicit confirmation

> for that specific action. Never chain destructive steps or run them

> speculatively as a side effect of another task.

Where to start: This skill is the bundle's deliberate in-bundle

home for **day-1 platform bring-up of a BlueField-4 DPU via the

BMC** — getting a powered-but-bare BF4 to "Grace OS installed,

firmware at the target level, ready to deploy a workload." It is the

upstream of the two application-deployment skills

(doca-container-deployment

and

doca-bare-metal-deployment):

those skills assume a working BlueField; this skill is how the

BlueField-4 GETS to working. If the user has a fresh BF4 and wants to

install the OS or update firmware, open TASKS.md and

start at ## configure. If the question is

*what bring-up methods even exist and what is the contract for each*,

start at CAPABILITIES.md.

> Scope note — BF4 day-1 is in scope by directive. The bundle's

> AGENTS.md ## Non-goals

> item 7 lists the BlueField BSP / BFB / RShim / TMFIFO layer and the

> BlueField BMC software as externally-productized. **BlueField-4

> day-1 bring-up via the BMC is carved into scope for this skill by

> directive** because day-1 has no other home in the bundle. The

> carve-out is narrow: this skill teaches the documented BMC-driven

> install and firmware-update FLOWS (the CLASS), routing every

> *mutating* step through

> doca-hardware-safety for the

> change-application meta-policy. It does NOT redefine that

> meta-policy, and it does NOT cover BF3 (route to

> doca-bf3-deployment), application launch, or library APIs.

Audience

This skill serves **external operators standing up a new

BlueField-4** who already have:

• a BlueField-4 with its BMC reachable out-of-band (BMC SSH plus the

documented Redfish endpoint), so the DPU can be driven without

physical access,

• the BlueField/DOCA bundle ISO (and, for the Grace-Ubuntu path, a

Grace Ubuntu image) downloaded from the public NVIDIA download

surface, hosted at {iso-uri} on the operator's own HTTP/HTTPS

server, and

• the target firmware and OS versions read from the **public

BlueField/DOCA release notes** (this skill never quotes a specific

pre-release firmware version).

It is not for:

• BlueField-3 (BF3) bring-up — route to doca-bf3-deployment,
• developers who want to RUN a DOCA service container or a DOCA-linked

binary on an already-working BlueField — route to

doca-container-deployment

or

doca-bare-metal-deployment,

• the cross-cutting hardware-change meta-policy itself (preflight, OOB

console discipline, maintenance window, rollback) — that is owned by

doca-hardware-safety and this

skill cross-links it, never duplicates it,

• fleet-scale / orchestrated DPU provisioning — that is DOCA Platform

Framework territory, routed via

doca-public-knowledge-map.

The skill teaches the agent the documented bring-up *procedure* and

the rules for quoting Redfish / PLDM / UEFI standard operations and

public BlueField/DOCA documentation via

doca-public-knowledge-map;

it does not invent BMC credentials, ISO URIs, firmware version

strings, EIDs, Redfish task IDs, or device names from memory.

When to load this skill

Load this skill when the user is doing **hands-on day-1 bring-up of a

BlueField-4 via the BMC**, or asking a cross-cutting BF4-bring-up

question that is not specific to a later application-deployment step.

Concretely:

• Installing the BlueField/DOCA bundle ISO onto the DPU (Grace) for

the first time, and choosing between the three documented install

methods — UEFI HTTP Boot (recommended), PXE Boot, or Redfish

Virtual Media.

• Running the PLDM firmware-update flow across the BMC / NIC firmware

/ SBIOS / ERoT components: pushing the .fwpkg bundle through the

Redfish UpdateService multipart endpoint, monitoring the returned

Task, verifying pending images with pldmtool, and activating with

a power cycle.

• Installing a Grace Ubuntu image (with optional cloud-init via a

CIDATA-labelled config ISO) through Redfish Virtual Media, with

either local hosting on the BMC eMMC or remote hosting on an

HTTPS server.

• Reaching the DPU's OOB serial console (BMC SSH plus

obmc-console-client) to watch the installer or UEFI menus.

• Diagnosing a bring-up that is misbehaving — the ISO will not boot,

virtual media will not attach, a firmware Task hangs or reports an

Exception, a pending image never activates, cloud-init is ignored,

or the DPU is stuck in a boot loop because media was never detached.

• Cross-cutting questions: *"HTTP Boot or Redfish Virtual Media — which

do I use, and when do I actually need PXE?"*, *"how do I know the

firmware update actually took effect?"*, *"the ISO landed but the

NIC firmware update sub-step seems to have failed — what now?"*.

Do not load this skill for BF3 bring-up (route to

doca-bf3-deployment); for running an application on an

already-working BlueField (route to

doca-container-deployment

or

doca-bare-metal-deployment);

for env preparation on the installed Grace OS such as hugepages /

pkg-config / devlink (use doca-setup); for

the cross-cutting hardware-change meta-policy (route to

doca-hardware-safety); or for

fleet-scale orchestrated provisioning (route via

doca-public-knowledge-map).

What this skill provides

This is a thin loader. Substantive material lives in two

companion files:

• CAPABILITIES.md — the BF4 day-1 bring-up contract: the three OS

install methods (UEFI HTTP Boot, PXE Boot, Redfish Virtual Media)

and the Grace-Ubuntu-plus-cloud-init Virtual Media path; the PLDM

firmware-update surface across BMC / NIC firmware / SBIOS / ERoT;

the version-compatibility overlay on

doca-version (the install and firmware

targets come from the public release notes, never from memory); the

bring-up error taxonomy (boot-source -> virtual-media-attach ->

firmware-Task -> activation -> cloud-init -> boot-loop); the

observability surface (the OOB console, the Redfish Task resource,

the Redfish FirmwareInventory, pldmtool GetFwParams, and the

installed-build check cat /etc/mlnx-release); and the safety

policy (an overlay on

doca-hardware-safety: every

PLDM burn / ISO reflash / power cycle / BMC factory reset is a

MUTATING hardware op; never print a real password; always detach

virtual media to avoid boot loops; only public hosts for any

NVIDIA URL).

• TASKS.md — step-by-step workflows for the in-scope bring-up verbs:

configure, build (routing stub), modify (routing stub), run

(the three install methods plus the PLDM firmware-update flow plus

the Grace-Ubuntu cloud-init path, as ### sub-anchors), test

(the post-install / post-update verification sweep), debug (the

layered bring-up diagnosis), and the Deferred task verbs block

routing BF3 / application-launch / library-API / env-prep /

hardware-meta-policy / fleet questions out to their owning skills.

The skill assumes a BlueField-4 target where:

• the BMC is reachable out-of-band and the operator has BMC

credentials ({bmc-user} / {bmc-password}) they supply — never

invented here,

• the bundle ISO (and any Grace Ubuntu image / cloud-init config ISO)

is downloaded from the public NVIDIA download surface and hosted at

{iso-uri},

• the operator has read the target firmware and OS versions from the

public BlueField/DOCA release notes.

It does not cover installing DOCA tooling on the host — that path goes

through doca-setup — and it does not cover

running a workload once Grace is up — those paths go through the two

application-deployment skills.

Loading order

• Read this SKILL.md first to confirm the user's question is in

scope (BF4 day-1 bring-up via the BMC; NOT BF3, NOT application

launch, NOT a library-API question, NOT the hardware-change

meta-policy itself).

• **For the bring-up contract (the three install methods, the

Grace-Ubuntu cloud-init path, the PLDM firmware-update surface, the

version overlay, the bring-up error taxonomy, the observability

surface, and the BF4 safety overlay), see

CAPABILITIES.md.**

• **For step-by-step workflows — configure, build (routing

stub), modify (routing stub), run (with the three install

methods, the PLDM flow, and the Grace-Ubuntu cloud-init path as

### sub-anchors), test, debug, plus the Deferred task verbs

block — see TASKS.md.**

• **Load

doca-hardware-safety

ALONGSIDE** whenever the question reaches a mutating step (PLDM

firmware burn, ISO reflash, power cycle, BMC factory reset).

Example questions this skill answers well

See references/details.md.

What this skill deliberately does not ship

See references/details.md.

Related skills

See references/details.md.