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npitaev
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SR-IOV support for Cisco VIC 1225 with ESXi

I was not able to find the answer online for the following question: does ESXi supports Cisco VIC 1225 NIC in SR-IOV mode?

The NIC itself supports SR-IOV, I used it in SR-IOV mode under RHEL. But ESXi (5.5 and 6.5) show "SR-IOV not supported".

How can I use Cisco VIC 1225 with SR-IOV under ESXi?

Tried to update / use the latest enic / nenic drivers – no luck.

ESXi 6.5:

esxcli software vib list | grep -i nenic

nenic                          1.0.1.0-1OEM.650.0.0.4598673          Cisco   VMwareCertified   2017-04-25

esxcli network nic list

Name     PCI Device    Driver  Admin Status  Link Status  Speed  Duplex  MAC Address         MTU  Description                                            

-------  ------------  ------  ------------  -----------  -----  ------  -----------------  ----  ---------------------------------------------------------

vmnic1   0000:58:00.0  ixgbe   Up            Down             0  Half    e8:65:49:9f:32:54  1500  Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller 10 Gigabit X540-AT2

vmnic12  0000:48:00.0  nenic   Up            Up           10000  Full    e8:65:49:54:8a:41  1500  Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC               

vmnic13  0000:49:00.0  nenic   Up            Down             0  Half    e8:65:49:54:8a:42  1500  Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC               

vmnic14  0000:51:00.0  nenic   Up            Up           10000  Full    e8:65:49:54:72:98  1500  Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC               

vmnic15  0000:52:00.0  nenic   Up            Down             0  Half    e8:65:49:54:72:99  1500  Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC               

...

vmnic24  0000:88:00.0  nenic   Up            Up           10000  Full    e8:65:49:54:72:78  1500  Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC EthernetNIC                

vmnic25  0000:89:00.0  nenic   Up            Down             0  Half    e8:65:49:54:72:79  1500  Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC               

vmnic26  0000:cc:00.0  nenic   Up            Up           10000  Full    e8:65:49:54:ab:6e  1500  Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC               

vmnic27  0000:cd:00.0  nenic   Up            Down             0  Half    e8:65:49:54:ab:6f  1500  Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC               

...


esxcli network sriovnic list

Name    PCI Device    Driver  Link  Speed  Duplex  MAC Address         MTU  Description                                            

------  ------------  ------  ----  -----  ------  -----------------  ----  ---------------------------------------------------------

vmnic1  0000:58:00.0  ixgbe   Down      0  Half    e8:65:49:9f:32:54  1500  Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller 10 Gigabit X540-AT2

vmnic2  0000:58:00.1  ixgbe   Down      0  Half    e8:65:49:9f:32:56  1500  Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller 10 Gigabit X540-AT2

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npitaev
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Here is, what I found out for this question:

SR-IOV is only supported on Cisco VIC1225 with KVM and Windows Hyper-V through VMFEX – which requires UCS FI.

As for the case of ESXi, there is no support for SR-IOV.  The VMFEX for ESXi is done through the vmdirectpath2 method. 

However, because I was looking to do this on ESXi 6.5, vmfex is not supported for that version and will not be – it is supported on earlier ESXi versions.

Currently the alternative is to use 3rd party adapters.

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npitaev
Contributor
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Jump to solution

Here is, what I found out for this question:

SR-IOV is only supported on Cisco VIC1225 with KVM and Windows Hyper-V through VMFEX – which requires UCS FI.

As for the case of ESXi, there is no support for SR-IOV.  The VMFEX for ESXi is done through the vmdirectpath2 method. 

However, because I was looking to do this on ESXi 6.5, vmfex is not supported for that version and will not be – it is supported on earlier ESXi versions.

Currently the alternative is to use 3rd party adapters.