Creating VFs on Intel 82576 running on VMWare ESXi 4.0

[idata]

Hi,

I installed vmware esxi 4.0 on HP proliant ML115 G5 system that has AMD DUal core 4450B processor. Inserted a Intel 82576 dual port gigabit NIC card and installed vmware version of the latest igb driver - ver. 1.3.19 (I think this is the latest version) on the hypervisor. I could see on the vSphere client interface that the got is detected. I have two questions here:

1. How can I create virtual functions (VFs) on the intel card so that I can assign a VF to a guest OS. I tried looking at the source code of the above driver, but looks like the max_vfs module parameter is removed altogether. Does this mean creating VFs is not supported on vmware or is there a different way to configure the VFs?

2. I want to configure the VFs in pass-through mode and assign to guest OSes. I know this needs VT-d support and I also know that my hardware doesn't have that support. I think assigning VFs to a guest OS needs VT-d support in the hardware, but creation of the VFs, I thought, should be possible in the first place independent of the hardware. Does creation of VFs (point 1) depends on the VT-d support? If this gets confirmed, I can buy VT-d supported hardware and assign them to guest OSes.

Thanks in advance,

PurnaChandar M

[idata]

The latest igb driver version for vmware ESX/ESXi 4.0 is 1.3.19. This doesn't have sr-iov support enabled. Can anybody out there tell me is there any latest igb driver for vmware ESX 4.0 with SR-IOV enabled. Would appreciate any bit of help on this.

Regards,

PurnaChandar M

[KAMALANATH_N_Intel]

hi Purnachandar,

To my understanding, SR-IOV feature is enabled in Intel 82576 Card(1 Gig).

But there is no support for SR-IOV in ESX environment.

Currently they are working to enable SR-IOV. May be incorporate in future release.

i will let you know once its released.

Thanks,

kamal.

[idata]

Hi Kamalanathan,

thanks a lot for confirming this.

Regards,

PurnaChandar M