xref: /openbsd/share/man/man4/vmx.4 (revision dda28197)
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3.\" Copyright (c) 2006,2013 Reyk Floeter <reyk@openbsd.org>
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17.Dd $Mdocdate: October 17 2017 $
18.Dt VMX 4
19.Os
20.Sh NAME
21.Nm vmx
22.Nd VMware VMXNET3 Virtual Interface Controller device
23.Sh SYNOPSIS
24.Cd vmx* at pci?
25.Sh DESCRIPTION
26The
27.Nm
28driver provides support for the VMXNET3 virtual NIC available in virtual
29machines by VMware.
30It appears as a simple Ethernet device but is actually a virtual network
31interface to the underlying host operating system.
32.Pp
33This driver supports the
34.Ic VMXNET3
35driver protocol, as an alternative to the emulated
36.Xr pcn 4 ,
37.Xr em 4
38and the earlier VMXNET
39.Xr vic 4
40interfaces also available in the VMware environment.
41The
42.Nm vmx
43driver is optimized for the virtual machine, it can provide advanced
44capabilities depending on the underlying host operating system and
45the physical network interface controller of the host.
46In comparison to the earlier VMXNET versions,
47as supported by the
48.Xr vic 4
49driver,
50VMXNET3 supports additional features like multiqueue support, IPv6
51checksum offloading, MSI/MSI-X support and hardware VLAN tagging in
52VMware's VLAN Guest Tagging (VGT) mode.
53.Pp
54The
55.Nm
56driver supports VMXNET3 VMware virtual NICs provided by the virtual
57machine hardware version 7 or newer, as provided by the following
58products:
59.Pp
60.Bl -bullet -compact -offset indent
61.It
62VMware ESX/ESXi 4.0 and newer
63.It
64VMware Server 2.0 and newer
65.It
66VMware Workstation 6.5 and newer
67.It
68VMware Fusion 2.0 and newer
69.El
70.Pp
71The
72.Nm
73driver supports the following media types:
74.Bl -tag -width autoselect
75.It autoselect
76Enable autoselection of the media type and options.
77The driver always uses the fastest available speed and the media
78options provided by the underlying host of the virtual machine.
79.It 10GbaseT mediaopt full-duplex
80Set 10Gbps operation.
81.It 1000baseT mediaopt full-duplex
82Set 1000Mbps operation.
83.El
84.Pp
85For more information on configuring this device, see
86.Xr ifconfig 8 .
87.Sh EXAMPLES
88The following entry must be added to the VMware configuration file
89to provide the
90.Nm
91device:
92.Bd -literal -offset indent
93ethernet0.virtualDev = "vmxnet3"
94.Ed
95.Sh SEE ALSO
96.Xr arp 4 ,
97.Xr em 4 ,
98.Xr ifmedia 4 ,
99.Xr intro 4 ,
100.Xr netintro 4 ,
101.Xr pci 4 ,
102.Xr pcn 4 ,
103.Xr vic 4 ,
104.Xr hostname.if 5 ,
105.Xr ifconfig 8
106.Sh HISTORY
107The
108.Nm
109driver first appeared in
110.Ox 5.5 .
111.Sh AUTHORS
112.An -nosplit
113The
114.Nm
115driver was written by
116.An Tsubai Masanari .
117