Solarflare Solarflare XtremeScale series, User Manual, Page: 81 / 400

Solarflare Server Adapter User Guide
Solarflare Adapters on Linux
Issue 20 © Solarflare Communications 2017 74
http://www.redhat.com/docs/en ‐ US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/5.4/html/
Deployment_Guide/s2 ‐ modules ‐ bonding.html
• RHEL6:
http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en ‐ US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/
Deployment_Guide/s2 ‐ networkscripts ‐ interfaces ‐ chan.html
• SLES:
http://www.novell.com/documentation/sles11/book_sle_admin/data/
sec_basicnet_yast.html#sec_basicnet_yast_netcard_man
3.14 NIC Partitioning
NIC Partitioning is a feature supported on Solarflare adapters starting with the
SFN7000 series. By partitioning the NIC, each physical network port can be exposed
to the host as multiple PCIe Physical Functions (PF) with each having a unique
interface name and unique MAC address.
When the Solarflare NET driver (sfc.ko) is loaded in the host, each PF is backed by a
virtual adapter connected to a virtual port. A switching function supports the
transport of network traffic between virtual ports (vport) and the physical port.
Partitioning is particularly useful when, for example, splitting a single 40GbE
interface into multiple PFs.
• Up to 16 PFs and 16 MAC addresses are support PER ADAPTER.
• On a 10GbE dual ‐ port adapter each physical port can be exposed as a maximum
8 PFs.
• On a 40GbE dual ‐ port adapter (in 2*40G mode) each physical port can be
exposed as a maximum 8 PFs.
• On a 40GbE dual ‐ port adapter (in 4*10G mode) each physical port can be
exposed as a maximum 4 PFs.