1.\" 2.\" Copyright (c) 2006,2013 Reyk Floeter <reyk@openbsd.org> 3.\" 4.\" Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any 5.\" purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above 6.\" copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies. 7.\" 8.\" THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES 9.\" WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF 10.\" MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR 11.\" ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES 12.\" WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN 13.\" ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF 14.\" OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE. 15.\" 16.\" $OpenBSD: src/share/man/man4/vmx.4,v 1.1 2013/05/31 20:18:44 reyk Exp $ 17.\" 18.Dd December 26, 2020 19.Dt VMX 4 20.Os 21.Sh NAME 22.Nm vmx 23.Nd VMware VMXNET3 Virtual Interface Controller device 24.Sh SYNOPSIS 25To compile this driver into the kernel, 26place the following lines in your 27kernel configuration file: 28.Bd -ragged -offset indent 29.Cd "device iflib" 30.Cd "device vmx" 31.Ed 32.Pp 33Alternatively, to load the driver as a 34module at boot time, place the following line in 35.Xr loader.conf 5 : 36.Bd -literal -offset indent 37if_vmx_load="YES" 38.Ed 39.Sh DESCRIPTION 40The 41.Nm 42driver provides support for the VMXNET3 virtual NIC available in virtual 43machines by VMware. 44It appears as a simple Ethernet device but is actually a virtual network 45interface to the underlying host operating system. 46.Pp 47This driver supports the 48.Ic VMXNET3 49driver protocol, as an alternative to the emulated 50.Xr le 4 , 51.Xr em 4 52interfaces also available in the VMware environment. 53The 54.Nm 55driver is optimized for the virtual machine, it can provide advanced 56capabilities depending on the underlying host operating system and 57the physical network interface controller of the host. 58The 59.Nm 60driver supports features like multiqueue support, IPv6 61checksum offloading, MSI/MSI-X support and hardware VLAN tagging in 62VMware's VLAN Guest Tagging (VGT) mode. 63.Pp 64The 65.Nm 66driver supports VMXNET3 VMware virtual NICs provided by the virtual 67machine hardware version 7 or newer, as provided by the following 68products: 69.Pp 70.Bl -bullet -compact -offset indent 71.It 72VMware ESX/ESXi 4.0 and newer 73.It 74VMware Server 2.0 and newer 75.It 76VMware Workstation 6.5 and newer 77.It 78VMware Fusion 2.0 and newer 79.El 80.Pp 81For more information on configuring this device, see 82.Xr ifconfig 8 . 83.Sh MULTIPLE QUEUES 84The 85.Nm 86driver supports multiple transmit and receive queues. 87Multiple queues are only supported by certain VMware products, such as ESXi. 88The number of queues allocated depends on the presence of MSI-X, 89the number of configured CPUs, 90and the tunables listed below. 91.Fx 92does not enable MSI-X support on VMware by default. 93The 94.Va hw.pci.honor_msi_blacklist 95tunable must be disabled to enable MSI-X support. 96.Sh LOADER TUNABLES 97Tunables can be set at the 98.Xr loader 8 99prompt before booting the kernel or stored in 100.Xr loader.conf 5 . 101.Bl -tag -width indent 102.It Va hw.vmx.txnqueue 103.It Va hw.vmx. Ns Ar X Ns Va .txnqueue 104Maximum number of transmit queues allocated by default by the driver. 105The default value is 8. 106The maximum supported by the VMXNET3 virtual NIC is 8. 107.It Va hw.vmx.rxnqueue 108.It Va hw.vmx. Ns Ar X Ns Va .rxnqueue 109Maximum number of receive queues allocated by default by the driver. 110The default value is 8. 111The maximum supported by the VMXNET3 virtual NIC is 16. 112.It Va hw.vmx.txndesc 113.It Va hw.vmx. Ns Ar X Ns Va .txndesc 114.Pp 115Number of transmit descriptors allocated by the driver. 116The default value is 512. 117The value must be a multiple of 32, and the maximum is 4096. 118.It Va hw.vmx.rxndesc 119.It Va hw.vmx. Ns Ar X Ns Va .rxndesc 120.Pp 121Number of receive descriptors per ring allocated by the driver. 122The default value is 256. 123The value must be a multiple of 32, and the maximum is 2048. 124There are two rings so the actual usage is doubled. 125.El 126.Sh EXAMPLES 127The following entry must be added to the VMware configuration file 128to provide the 129.Nm 130device: 131.Bd -literal -offset indent 132ethernet0.virtualDev = "vmxnet3" 133.Ed 134.Sh SEE ALSO 135.Xr altq 4 , 136.Xr arp 4 , 137.Xr em 4 , 138.Xr iflib 4 , 139.Xr le 4 , 140.Xr netintro 4 , 141.Xr ng_ether 4 , 142.Xr vlan 4 , 143.Xr ifconfig 8 144.Sh AUTHORS 145.An -nosplit 146The 147.Nm 148driver was ported from 149.Ox 150and significantly rewritten by 151.An Bryan Venteicher Aq Mt bryanv@freebsd.org . 152The 153.Ox 154driver was written by 155.An Tsubai Masanari . 156