Users Guide

8–VMware Driver Software
Networking Support, Drivers
61 BC0054508-00 J
Download, Install, and Update Drivers
To download, install, or update the VMware ESXi driver for BCM57xx and
BCM57xxx 10GbE network adapters, see http://www.vmware.com/support
. This
package is double zipped—unzip the package before copying it to the ESXi host.
Driver Parameters
You can supply several optional parameters as a command line argument to the
vmkload_mod command. Set these parameters by issuing the
esxcfg-module command. For more information, issue the command:
esxcfg-module -h.
int_mode
Use the optional parameter int_mode to force using an interrupt mode other
than MSI-X. By default, the driver tries to enable MSI-X if it is supported by the
kernel. If MSI-X is not attainable, the driver tries to enable MSI if it is supported by
the kernel. If MSI is not attainable, the driver uses the legacy INTx mode.
To force using the legacy INTx mode on all BCM57xx and BCM57xxx network
adapters in the system, set the int_mode parameter to 1 as shown in the
following:
vmkload_mod bnx2x int_mode=1
To force using MSI mode on all BCM57xx and BCM57xxx network adapters in the
system, set the int_mode parameter to 2 as shown in the following:
vmkload_mod bnx2x int_mode=2
disable_tpa
Use the optional parameter disable_tpa to disable the transparent packet
aggregation (TPA) feature. By default, the driver aggregates TCP packets.
To disable the TPA feature on all BCM57xx and BCM57xxx network adapters in
the system, set the disable_tpa parameter to 1 as shown in the following:
vmkload_mod bnx2x disable_tpa=1
Use ethtool to disable TPA (LRO) for a specific network adapter.
num_queues
Use the parameter num_queues to set the quantity of queues (the default is the
quantity of CPUs).