ISO/IEC 24079:2024
(Main)Information technology — Network Controller Sideband Interface (NC-SI) specifications collection
Information technology — Network Controller Sideband Interface (NC-SI) specifications collection
This document defines the functionality and behavior of the Sideband Interface responsible for connecting the Network Controller to the Management Controller. It also outlines the behavioral model of the network traffic destined for the Management Controller from the Network Controller. This document defines the following two aspects of the Network Controller Sideband Interface (NC‑SI): behavior of the interface, which include its operational states as well as the states of the associated components, the payloads and commands of the communication protocol supported over the interface. The scope of this document is limited to addressing only a single Management Controller communicating with one or more Network Controllers. This document also defines the following aspects of a 3.3V RMII Based Transport (RBT) based physical medium: transport binding for NC-SI over RBT, electrical and timing requirements for the RBT, an optional hardware arbitration mechanism for RBT. Only the topics that may affect the behavior of the Network Controller or Management Controller, as it pertains to the Sideband Interface operations, are discussed in this document. NC-SI over MCTP Binding Specification (DSP0261) This document defines the bindings between NC-SI protocol elements and MCTP elements in order for NC-SI Control and Pass-Through traffic to be transported using MCTP. Portions of this document rely on information and definitions from other specifications, which clause REF _Ref99190650 \r \h 2 08D0C9EA79F9BACE118C8200AA004BA90B02000000080000000D0000005F00520065006600390039003100390030003600350030000000 identifies. Two of these references are particularly relevant: DMTF DSP0222, Network Controller Sideband Interface (NC-SI) Specification, provides the NC‑SI base control that is to be bound over MCTP by this specification. DMTF DSP0236, Management Component Transport Protocol (MCTP) Base Specification, defines the MCTP transport on which the NC-SI Control and Pass-through packets are to be conveyed.
Technologies de l’information — Collection de spécifications pour l’interface entre contrôleur réseau et contrôleur de gestion système (NC-SI)
General Information
Standards Content (Sample)
International
Standard
ISO/IEC 24079
First edition
Information technology — Network
2024-07
Controller Sideband Interface (NC-
SI) specifications collection
Technologies de l’information — Collection de spécifications
pour l’interface entre contrôleur réseau et contrôleur de gestion
système (NC-SI)
Reference number
© ISO/IEC 2024
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© ISO/IEC 2024 – All rights reserved
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Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International Electrotechnical
Commission) form the specialized system for worldwide standardization. National bodies that are members
of ISO or IEC participate in the development of International Standards through technical committees
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in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular, the different approval criteria needed for the different types
of document should be noted (see www.iso.org/directives or www.iec.ch/members_experts/refdocs).
ISO and IEC draw attention to the possibility that the implementation of this document may involve the use
of (a) patent(s). ISO and IEC take no position concerning the evidence, validity or applicability of any claimed
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notice of (a) patent(s) which may be required to implement this document. However, implementers are
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see www.iso.org/iso/foreword.html. In the IEC, see www.iec.ch/understanding-standards.
This document was prepared by DMTF [as DMFT Network Controller Sideband Interface (NC-SI)
Specifications Collection] and drafted in accordance with its editorial rules. It was adopted, under the JTC 1
PAS procedure, by Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology.
Any feedback or questions on this document should be directed to the user’s national standards body. A
complete listing of these bodies can be found at www.iso.org/members.html and www.iec.ch/national-
committees.
© ISO/IEC 2024 – All rights reserved
iii
Contents
Foreword . xi
Introduction . xiii
1 Scope . 1
2 Normative references . 2
3 Terms and definitions . 3
3.1 Requirement term definitions . 3
3.2 NC-SI term definitions . 4
3.3 Numbers and number bases . 6
3.4 Reserved fields . 6
4 Symbols and abbreviated terms . 6
5 Network Controller Sideband Interface (NC-SI) Specification (DSP0222) . 8
5.1 NC-SI overview . 8
5.2 Operational behaviors . 14
5.3 Arbitration in configurations with multiple Network Controller packages . 35
5.4 Packet definitions . 45
5.5 Packet-based and op-code timing . 105
5.6 RBT Electrical specification . 107
6 Network Controller Sideband Interface (NC-SI) Collection (DSP0261) . 114
6.1 NC-SI over MCTP overview . 114
6.2 NC-SI over MCTP specific considerations . 116
6.3 Supported NC-SI commands. 126
6.4 Message types . 128
6.5 NC-SI support specific to MCTP transport . 132
6.6 Packet-Based Timing Specific to MCTP Binding . 135
ANNEX A (normative) Extending the model . 136
A.1 Commands extension . 136
A.2 Design considerations . 136
ANNEX B (informative) Relationship to RMII Specification . 137
ANNEX C (informative) Notation and conventions . 139
Bibliography . 140
© ISO/IEC 2024 – All rights reserved
iv
Figures
Figure 1 – NC-SI functional block diagram . 9
Figure 2 – NC-SI traffic flow diagram . 10
Figure 3 – Example topologies supported by the NC-SI . 11
Figure 4 – Network Controller integration options . 12
Figure 5 – NC-SI transport stack . 13
Figure 6 – NC-SI operational state diagram . 18
Figure 7 – NC-SI operational state diagram for hardware arbitration operation . 19
Figure 8 – MC steps when the MC does not have prior knowledge of hardware arbitration . 27
Figure 9 – NC-SI packet filtering flowchart . 32
Figure 10 – Basic multi-drop block diagram . 36
Figure 11 – Multiple Network Controllers in a ring format . 37
Figure 12 – Op-code to RXD relationship . 39
Figure 13 – Example TOKEN to transmit relationship . 42
Figure 14 – Hardware arbitration state machine . 43
Figure 15 – Ethernet frame encapsulation of NC-SI packet data without VLAN tag . 45
Figure 16 – Example NC-SI signal interconnect topology . 107
Figure 17 – DC measurements . 109
Figure 18 – AC measurements . 110
Figure 19 – Overshoot measurement . 112
Figure 20 – Undershoot measurement . 113
Figure 21 – NC-SI over RBT traffic flow diagram . 115
Figure 22 – NC-SI over MCTP traffic flow diagram . 116
Figure 23 – Single MCTP EID to multiple NC-SI channels mapping . 117
Figure 24 – Multiple MCTP EIDs to multiple NC-SI channels mapping . 118
Figure 25 – Multiple MCTP transport bindings example . 121
© ISO/IEC 2024 – All rights reserved
v
Tables
Table 1 – Component documents . xi
Table 2 – NC-SI operating state descriptions . 15
Table 3 – Channel ID format . 20
Table 4 – Channel Ready state configuration settings . 21
Table 5 – Hardware arbitration di-bit encoding . 38
Table 6 – Hardware arbitration op-code format . 38
Table 7 – Hardware arbitration states . 44
Table 8 – Hardware arbitration events . 44
Table 9 – Ethernet header format . 46
Table 10 – Control packet header format . 47
Table 11 – Generic example of control packet payload . 48
Table 12 – Generic example of response packet payload format . 50
Table 13 – Reason code ranges . 51
Table 14 – Standard response code values . 51
Table 15 – S
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