Management Component Transport Protocol (MCTP) is aprotocol designed by theDistributed Management Task Force (DMTF) to support communications between different intelligent hardware components that make up a platform management subsystem, providing monitoring and control functions inside a managed computer system. This protocol is independent of the underlying physicalbus properties, as well as thedata link layer messaging used on the bus. The MCTP communication model includes amessage format, transport description, message exchange patterns, and operationalendpoint characteristics.[1][2]
MCTP allows the transmission of a wide variety of management commands over alternative types of links. Simplified nature of the protocol and reducedencapsulation overheads make MCTP suitable for implementation and processing within system firmware and integratedbaseboard management controllers (BMCs), on a wide range of platforms – including servers, workstations and embedded devices.[1][3][4] The following table describes which protocols MCTP can encapsulate, and what kind of protocols MCTP can be run over:
| Protocol | Can encapsulate | Can transmit over |
|---|---|---|
| PCI Express | MI | VDM |
| NVM Express | Management Messages | No |
| CXL (Fabric Manager, Type 3 DCCI) | Yes | No |
| Platform Level Data Model | Yes | No |
| NC-SI, Ethernet | Yes | No |
| USB | No | Yes |
| I2C/SMBus, I3C (incl. PCIe) | No | Yes |
| Serial Port | No | Yes |
| ACPI PCC | No | Yes |
| UCIe | No | Yes |
| KCS | No | Yes |
| MMBI (incl. PCIe) | No | Yes |
For example,Intel'snetwork interface controllers (NICs) include support for MCTP over PCI Express and SMBus since 2012, allowing these NICs to be controlled and monitored at a low level over MCTP. Exposed configuration and monitoring operations include power management, control ofAddress Resolution Protocol (ARP) offloading, configuration of theout-of-band management traffic (which can be separated from the Ethernet traffic visible to the operating system by usingRMCP ports filtering, a separateMAC address, or throughVLAN tagging), and handling of NIC's interrupts and error conditions.[3][6][7]
DMTF also defines theManagement Controller Host Interface (MCHI), which includes a set of discovery options and registration commands, allowingUEFI,BIOS or the operating system to communicate with a MCTP-enabled BMC. Discovery options includePCI/PCI Express class codes as part of thePCI configuration space, MCHI Description Table and control methods defined and exported viaACPI, and data structures exported viaSMBIOS.[8]
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