VMware Driver Software: Broadcom NetXtreme II® Network Adapter User Guide
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VMware Driver Software: Broadcom NetXtreme II
®
Network Adapter User Guide
Packaging
Networking Support
Drivers
FCoE Support
Packaging
The VMware driver is released in the packaging formats shown in
Table 1
.
Table 1: VMware Driver Packaging
Format
Drivers
Compressed tar bnx2x-
version
.tar.gz
VMware VIB
vmware-esx-drivers-net-bnx2x-
version
.x86_64.vib
Networking Support
This section describes the bnx2x VMware ESX driver for the Broadcom NetXtreme II PCIE 10 GbE network adapters.
Drivers
Download, Install, and Update Drivers
To download, install, or update the VMware ESX/ESXi driver for NetXtreme II 10 GbE network adapters, see
http://www.vmware.com/support
.
Driver Parameters
Several optional parameters can be supplied as a command line argument to the vmkload_mod command. These parameters can also be set via the esxcfg-module
command. See the man page for more information.
int_mode
The optional parameter
int_mode
is used to force using an interrupt mode other than MSI-X. By default, the driver will try to enable MSI-X if it is supported by the
kernel. If MSI-X is not attainable, then the driver will try to enable MSI if it is supported by the kernel. If MSI is not attainable, then the driver will use the legacy
INTx mode.
Set the
int_mode
parameter to 1 as shown below to force using the legacy INTx mode on all NetXtreme II network adapters in the system.
vmkload_mod bnx2x int_mode=1
Set the
int_mode
parameter to 2 as shown below to force using MSI mode on all NetXtreme II network adapters in the system.
vmkload_mod bnx2x int_mode=2
disable_tpa
The optional parameter
disable_tpa
can be used to disable the Transparent Packet Aggregation (TPA) feature. By default, the driver will aggregate TCP packets,
but if you would like to disable this advanced feature, it can be done.
Set the
disable_tpa
parameter to 1 as shown below to disable the TPA feature on all NetXtreme II network adapters in the system.
vmkload_mod bnx2x.ko disable_tpa=1
Use ethtool to disable TPA (LRO) for a specific network adapter.
num_rx_queues
The optional parameter
num_rx_queues
may be used to set the number of Rx queues on kernels starting from 2.6.24 when
multi_mode
is set to 1 and interrupt
mode is MSI-X. Number of Rx queues must be equal to or greater than the number of Tx queues (see
num_tx_queues
parameter). If the interrupt mode is
different than MSI-X (see
int_mode
parameter), then then the number of Rx queues will be set to 1, discarding the value of this parameter.
num_tx_queues
The optional parameter
num_tx_queues
may be used to set the number of Tx queues on kernels starting from 2.6.27 when
multi_mode
is set to 1 and interrupt
mode is MSI-X. The number of Rx queues must be equal to or greater than the number of Tx queues (see
num_rx_queues
parameter). If the interrupt mode is
different than MSI-X (see
int_mode
parameter), then the number of Tx queues will be set to 1, discarding the value of this parameter.
pri_map
The optional parameter
pri_map
is used to map the VLAN PRI value or the IP DSCP value to a different or the same CoS in the hardware. This 32-bit parameter is
evaluated by the driver as 8 values of 4 bits each. Each nibble sets the desired hardware queue number for that priority.
For example, set the
pri_map
parameter to 0x22221100 to map priority 0 and 1 to CoS 0, map priority 2 and 3 to CoS 1, and map priority 4 to 7 to CoS 2. In
another example, set the
pri_map
parameter to 0x11110000 to map priority 0 to 3 to CoS 0, and map priority 4 to 7 to CoS 1.
qs_per_cos