User guide

User Guide NetXtreme II
September 2013
Broadcom Corporation
Document INGSRVT78-CDUM100-R Drivers Page 179
If you see messages in the log file that look like the following, then the ESX host is severely strained. To relieve this, disable
NetQueue.
Dec 2 18:24:20 ESX4 vmkernel: 0:00:00:32.342 cpu2:4142)WARNING: Heap: 1435: Heap bnx2x
already at its maximumSize. Cannot expand.
Dec 2 18:24:20 ESX4 vmkernel: 0:00:00:32.342 cpu2:4142)WARNING: Heap: 1645:
Heap_Align(bnx2x, 4096/4096 bytes, 4096 align) failed. caller: 0x41800187d654
Dec 2 18:24:20 ESX4 vmkernel: 0:00:00:32.342 cpu2:4142)WARNING: vmklinux26: alloc_pages:
Out of memory
Disable NetQueue by manually loading the bnx2x vmkernel module via the command.
vmkload_mod bnx2x multi_mode=0
or to persist the settings across reboots via the command
esxcfg-module -s multi_mode=0 bnx2x
Reboot the machine for the settings to take place.
MultiQueue/NetQueue
The optional parameter num_queues may be used to set the number of Rx and Tx queues when multi_mode is set to 1
and interrupt mode is MSI-X. If interrupt mode is different than MSI-X (see int_mode parameter), the number of Rx and Tx
queues will be set to 1, discarding the value of this parameter.
If you would like the use of more then 1 queue, force the number of NetQueues to use via the following command:
esxcfg-module -s "multi_mode=1 num_queues=<num of queues>" bnx2x
Otherwise, allow the bnx2x driver to select the number of NetQueues to use via the following command:
esxcfg-module -s "multi_mode=1 num_queues=0" bnx2x
The optimal number is to have the number of NetQueues match the number of CPUs on the machine.