For Hardware Backed Management Ports (e.g. Virtual functions), the Egress IP Health Check Feature will error out with:
"unable to start health checking server: no mgmt ip"

OVN-Kubernetes 4.12.0

Always

1. Load OVN-Kubernetes 4.12.0 in MLX BlueField 2
2. If in NIC mode:
https://github.com/ovn-org/ovn-kubernetes/pull/3160
https://github.com/ovn-org/ovn-kubernetes/pull/3251
Patches are needed.
3. If in DPU mode then those above patches are optional.
4. Set OVNKUBE_NODE_MGMT_PORT_NETDEV environment variable to point to the Virtual Function.

Error in ovnkube-node:
"unable to start health checking server: no mgmt ip".
The ovnkube-node container will crash. Egress IP Health Check should be compatible with VFs as management port.

No Error.

A simple workaround is to not return an error:
go-controller/pkg/node/node.go
@@ -660,7 +660,8 @@ func (n *OvnNode) startEgressIPHealthCheckingServer(wg *sync.WaitGroup, mgmtPort
                        return fmt.Errorf("failed start health checking server due to unsettled IPv6: %w", err)
                }
        } else {
-               return fmt.Errorf("unable to start health checking server: no mgmt ip")
+               klog.Infof("Unable to start Egress IP health checking server: no mgmt ip")
+               return nil
        }