The official NVIDIA DOCA upgrade procedure requires a complete uninstallation of the previous version before installing the new one. The first step in this process on the host server is to uninstall the existing NVIDIA OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution (OFED) driver package. This is accomplished using the ofeduninstall.sh script. This step is critical to prevent driver conflicts and ensure a clean installation of the new driver stack that is bundled with the updated DOCA version.

sudo apt-get autoremove: This is a generic package management command for removing unused dependencies and is not the specific first step for a DOCA upgrade.

sudo apt-get upgrade doca: This command is not the standard procedure. The DOCA framework upgrade requires a manual uninstall-reinstall process, starting with the OFED driver.

sudo apt-get install doca: This command is used for installation, which occurs only after the previous version's components, including the OFED driver, have been successfully uninstalled.

1. NVIDIA DOCA Installation Guide for Linux v2.6.0, Section 3.1, "Upgrading DOCA": "Before installing a new version of DOCA, you must first uninstall the currently installed DOCA version." The guide then directs the user to the uninstallation section.

2. NVIDIA DOCA Installation Guide for Linux v2.6.0, Section 3.2.1, "Host Uninstall": The first step listed is "Uninstall MLNXOFED" with the command sudo /usr/sbin/ofeduninstall.sh -f.

3. NVIDIA BlueField DPU Software User Guide v4.5.0, Section 2.1.2, "Upgrading DOCA on Host": "To upgrade DOCA on the host, you must first uninstall the current DOCA version and then install the new one." It then refers to the uninstallation procedure, which begins with removing the OFED driver.