Users Guide

16–SR-IOV
Enabling SR-IOV
Doc No. BC0054508-00 Rev. R
January 21, 2021 Page 249 Copyright © 2021 Marvell
3. In Virtual Switch Manager, create a virtual NIC using the appropriate
procedure for either Windows or ESX.
In Windows:
a. Select Allow Management operating system to share the network
adapter if the host will use this vSwitch to connect to the associated
VMs.
b. Create a vSwitch and select the Enable Single root I/O Virtualization
option.
c. In Virtual Switch Manager, select the virtual adapter and select
Hardware Acceleration in the navigation pane. In the Single-root I/O
virtualization section, select Enable SR-IOV. SR-IOV must be done
now and cannot be enabled after the vSwitch is created.
In ESX:
a. Install the qfle3 driver.
b. Ensure that the lspci command output on ESXi lists the desired
adapter.
c. From lspci, select the 10G NIC sequence number for which SR-IOV
is required. For example:
~ # lspci | grep -i Broadcom 0000:03:00.0 Network
Controllers: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme II BCM57810
10 Gigabit Ethernet [vmnic0]
Following is a sample output.
0000:03:00.1 Network Controllers: Broadcom Corporation
NetXtreme II BCM57810 10 Gigabit Ethernet [vmnic1]
~ #
d. In the driver, enable SR-IOV by using the max_vfs parameter and
passing a list containing the quantity of VFs for each port. In the BIOS,
ensure that the quantity of VFs per PF parameter is configured with a
minimum of the required quantity of VFs. Each PF port supports a
maximum of 64 VFs; the minimum quantity is 1. For example:
~ # esxcli system module parameters set -m bnx2x -p
"max_vfs=64, 64"
e. Restart the system.
4. Install the Marvell drivers for the adapters detected in the VM. Use the latest
drivers available from your vendor for the host OS (do not use the inbox
drivers). The same driver version should be installed on the host and the
VM.