Linux 5.17 Picking Up Support For New NVIDIA Spectrum-4 Network ASIC

As part of the plethora of networking changes for Linux 5.17, NVIDIA is introducing support for Spectrum-4 networking ASICs.

For Linux on the NVIDIA (Mellanox) Spectrum Open Ethernet Switches there is the MLXSW driver for supporting the Ethernet Switch ASICs. That Mellanox network driver has supported Spectrum, Spectrum-2, and Spectrum3- families of Ethernet switches while queued up now in time for Linux 5.17 is Spectrum-4 support.

With the latest NVIDIA Spectrum SN4000 series Ethernet switches being based on Spectrum-3, it doesn't appear there is any Spectrum-4 hardware out yet in the marketplace.

This merge to Net-Next happened on Thursday added the Spectrum-4 support to the Mellanox Ethernet driver, right in time for the Linux 5.17 merge window kicking off next week.

NVIDIA Mellanox Spectrum switches support NVIDIA Cumulus Linux, NVIDIA Onyx, SONiC Linux, and DENT operating systems for these high-end enterprise products. In time for upcoming NVIDIA Spectrum switches using unannounced Spectrum-4, Linux 5.17+ appears ready with mainline kernel support.