DOCA Profiles

This document introduces and compares the different NVIDIA DOCA Host installation profiles, helping users select the most suitable configuration for their workloads and environments.

Introduction

NVIDIA DOCA can be installed on host machines to support a range of NVIDIA BlueField DPUs and ConnectX SmartNICs. To meet the needs of different deployment scenarios, DOCA offers installation profiles—validated packages that streamline setup based on the desired functionality.

The following are the available DOCA profiles:

doca-all
doca-networking
doca-ofed
doca-roce
doca-host-basic

DOCA functionality is limited by the specific device capabilities.

Which Profile to Install?

The functionality of DOCA-Host is limited by the device capabilities (for example, ConnectX devices cannot utilize DOCA libraries such as DPA, even if doca-all is installed on the host).

For BlueField devices:

NVIDIA recommends the doca-all profile
If you require the smallest installation package for networking-only purposes, use doca-networking
For MLNX_OFED-like installations, use doca-ofed (no additional DOCA functionality)
For RoCE functionality only, install doca-roce
doca-host-basic will provide the common basic networking functionality, similar to doca-roce but without MFT and FW-Updater

For ConnectX devices:

NVIDIA recommends the doca-networking profile
For deployments with both BlueField and ConnectX devices, use doca-all. This is also a good, scalable option for deployments that do not currently use either BlueField or ConnectX devices but eventually might.
For MLNX_OFED-like installation use doca-ofed (no additional DOCA functionality)
For RoCE functionality only, install doca-roce
For common networking functionality without the added Tools, install doca-host-basic

Profile Details

doca-all

Purpose	Install the full DOCA suite, including all libraries, drivers, and tools
Includes	All DOCA libraries and drivers MLNX_OFED DOCA Core MLNX-DPDK OVS-DOCA DOCA Flow
Recommended for	Full-featured BlueField deployments Users needing access to all DOCA functionalities Future-proof mixed BlueField/ConnectX environments

Some components may require additional manual installation after the default package is installed.

doca-networking

Purpose	Networking-specific installation without full DOCA library overhead
Includes	MLNX_OFED DOCA Core DOCA-PCC OVS-DOCA DOCA Flow
Recommended for	Users focused on accelerated networking BlueField or ConnectX environments where only networking functionality is required

doca-ofed

Purpose	Driver-only installation equivalent to MLNX_OFED
Includes	MLNX_OFED drivers and tools
Recommended for	Minimalist setups with no DOCA user-space components Compatibility-focused deployments

doca-roce

Purpose	Lightweight RDMA-over-Ethernet (RoCE) functionality
Includes	rdma-core ofed-scripts mlnx-tools mlnx-ofa_kernel perftest
Recommended for	RoCE-only applications Low-footprint installations

doca-host-basic

Purpose	Lightweight Ethernet only functionality
Includes	rdma-core mlnx-tools mlnx-ofa_kernel perftest mlnx-ethtool mlnx-iproute2
Recommended for	Low-footprint installations with basic Ethernet networking

Supported Devices

All profiles support the following NVIDIA hardware:

BlueField-3
BlueField-2
ConnectX-8
ConnectX-7
ConnectX-6 DX / LX / standard
ConnectX-5
ConnectX-4 LX

DOCA functionality is limited by the specific device capabilities. For example, ConnectX devices cannot use certain DOCA libraries, such as DPA.

Profile Installation Notes

Each DOCA-Host profile is supported on a subset of operating systems. Refer to Supported Host OS per DOCA-Host Installation Profile for device-specific compatibility information. To install a profile, follow the installation steps in DOCA-Host Installation and Upgrade .

Last updated: February 02, 2026