2 .\" Copyright (c) 2006,2013 Reyk Floeter <reyk@openbsd.org>
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.
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.
16 .\" $OpenBSD: src/share/man/man4/vmx.4,v 1.1 2013/05/31 20:18:44 reyk Exp $
25 .Nd VMware VMXNET3 Virtual Interface Controller device
27 To compile this driver into the kernel,
28 place the following line in your
29 kernel configuration file:
30 .Bd -ragged -offset indent
34 Alternatively, to load the driver as a
35 module at boot time, place the following line in
37 .Bd -literal -offset indent
43 driver provides support for the VMXNET3 virtual NIC available in virtual
45 It appears as a simple Ethernet device but is actually a virtual network
46 interface to the underlying host operating system.
48 This driver supports the
50 driver protocol, as an alternative to the emulated
53 interfaces also available in the VMware environment.
56 driver is optimized for the virtual machine, it can provide advanced
57 capabilities depending on the underlying host operating system and
58 the physical network interface controller of the host.
61 driver supports features like multiqueue support, IPv6
62 checksum offloading, MSI/MSI-X support and hardware VLAN tagging in
63 VMware's VLAN Guest Tagging (VGT) mode.
67 driver supports VMXNET3 VMware virtual NICs provided by the virtual
68 machine hardware version 7 or newer, as provided by the following
71 .Bl -bullet -compact -offset indent
73 VMware ESX/ESXi 4.0 and newer
75 VMware Server 2.0 and newer
77 VMware Workstation 6.5 and newer
79 VMware Fusion 2.0 and newer
82 For more information on configuring this device, see
85 Tunables can be set at the
87 prompt before booting the kernel or stored in
89 .Bl -tag -width indent
91 .It Va hw.vmx. Ns Ar X Ns Va .txndesc
93 Number of transmit descriptors allocated by the driver.
94 The default value is 512.
95 The value must be a multiple of 32, and the maximum is 4096.
97 .It Va hw.vmx. Ns Ar X Ns Va .rxndesc
99 Number of receive descriptors per ring allocated by the driver.
100 The default value is 256.
101 The value must be a multiple of 32, and the maximum is 2048.
102 There are two rings so the actual usage is doubled.
105 The following entry must be added to the VMware configuration file
109 .Bd -literal -offset indent
110 ethernet0.virtualDev = "vmxnet3"
125 driver was ported from
127 and significantly rewritten by
128 .An Bryan Venteicher Aq bryanv@freebsd.org .
131 driver was written by
132 .An Tsubai Masanari .