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.\" $FreeBSD: head/share/man/man4/vmx.4 267938 2014-06-26 21:46:14Z bapt $ 19.\" 20.Dd October 4, 2017 21.Dt VMX 4 22.Os 23.Sh NAME 24.Nm vmx 25.Nd VMware VMXNET3 Virtual Interface Controller device 26.Sh SYNOPSIS 27To compile this driver into the kernel, 28place the following line in your 29kernel configuration file: 30.Bd -ragged -offset indent 31.Cd "device vmx" 32.Ed 33.Pp 34Alternatively, to load the driver as a 35module at boot time, place the following line in 36.Xr loader.conf 5 : 37.Bd -literal -offset indent 38if_vmx_load="YES" 39.Ed 40.Sh DESCRIPTION 41The 42.Nm 43driver provides support for the VMXNET3 virtual NIC available in virtual 44machines by VMware. 45It appears as a simple Ethernet device but is actually a virtual network 46interface to the underlying host operating system. 47.Pp 48This driver supports the 49.Ic VMXNET3 50driver protocol, as an alternative to the emulated 51.Xr pcn 4 , 52.Xr em 4 53interfaces also available in the VMware environment. 54The 55.Nm 56driver is optimized for the virtual machine, it can provide advanced 57capabilities depending on the underlying host operating system and 58the physical network interface controller of the host. 59The 60.Nm 61driver supports features like multiqueue support, IPv6 62checksum offloading, MSI 63.\"/MSI-X 64support and hardware VLAN tagging in 65VMware's VLAN Guest Tagging (VGT) mode. 66.Pp 67The 68.Nm 69driver supports VMXNET3 VMware virtual NICs provided by the virtual 70machine hardware version 7 or newer, as provided by the following 71products: 72.Pp 73.Bl -bullet -compact -offset indent 74.It 75VMware ESX/ESXi 4.0 and newer 76.It 77VMware Server 2.0 and newer 78.It 79VMware Workstation 6.5 and newer 80.It 81VMware Fusion 2.0 and newer 82.El 83.Pp 84For more information on configuring this device, see 85.Xr ifconfig 8 . 86.\".Sh MULTIPLE QUEUES 87.\"The 88.\".Nm 89.\"driver supports multiple transmit and receive queues. 90.\"Multiple queues are only supported by certain VMware products, such as ESXi. 91.\"The number of queues allocated depends on the presence of MSI-X, 92.\"the number of configured CPUs, 93.\"and the tunables listed below. 94.\".Fx 95.\"does not enable MSI-X support on VMware by default. 96.\"The 97.\".Va hw.pci.honor_msi_blacklist 98.\"tunable must be disabled to enable MSI-X support. 99.Sh LOADER TUNABLES 100Tunables can be set at the 101.Xr loader 8 102prompt before booting the kernel or stored in 103.Xr loader.conf 5 . 104.Bl -tag -width indent 105.It Va hw.vmx.txnqueue 106.It Va hw.vmx. Ns Ar X Ns Va .txnqueue 107Maximum number of transmit queues allocated by default by the driver. 108The default value is 8. 109The maximum supported by the VMXNET3 virtual NIC is 8. 110.It Va hw.vmx.rxnqueue 111.It Va hw.vmx. Ns Ar X Ns Va .rxnqueue 112Maximum number of receive queues allocated by default by the driver. 113The default value is 8. 114The maximum supported by the VMXNET3 virtual NIC is 16. 115.It Va hw.vmx.txndesc 116.It Va hw.vmx. Ns Ar X Ns Va .txndesc 117.Pp 118Number of transmit descriptors allocated by the driver. 119The default value is 512. 120The value must be a multiple of 32, and the maximum is 4096. 121.It Va hw.vmx.rxndesc 122.It Va hw.vmx. Ns Ar X Ns Va .rxndesc 123.Pp 124Number of receive descriptors per ring allocated by the driver. 125The default value is 256. 126The value must be a multiple of 32, and the maximum is 2048. 127There are two rings so the actual usage is doubled. 128.El 129.Sh EXAMPLES 130The following entry must be added to the VMware configuration file 131to provide the 132.Nm 133device: 134.Bd -literal -offset indent 135ethernet0.virtualDev = "vmxnet3" 136.Ed 137.Sh SEE ALSO 138.Xr altq 4 , 139.Xr arp 4 , 140.Xr em 4 , 141.Xr ifmedia 4 , 142.Xr netintro 4 , 143.Xr ng_ether 4 , 144.Xr pcn 4 , 145.Xr vlan 4 , 146.Xr ifconfig 8 147.Sh AUTHORS 148.An -nosplit 149The 150.Nm 151driver was ported from 152.Ox 153and significantly rewritten by 154.An Bryan Venteicher Aq Mt bryanv@freebsd.org . 155The 156.Ox 157driver was written by 158.An Tsubai Masanari . 159