VM SR-IOV VF fails dpdk

VM SR-IOV VF fails dpdk

[Lombardo, Ed]

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Hi,
I am finding an issue on ESXi host running our Linux VM application.  The DPDK version is 17.11 and VM OS is 3.10.0-1160.81.1.el7.x86_64.
ESXi host version is 7.03.
The NIC is the Intel x710-DA2 in SR-IOV mode.  Configured on ESXi host 4 virtual functions.
Our VM has one of the four virtual functions from the x710 NIC for DPDK port.

In our application, when we initialize the port and all the checks pass, but rte_eth_dev_start() fails for -1 return code.
The failure from gdb is:
i40evf_configure_vsi_queues(): Failed to execute command of VIRTCHNL_OP_CONFIG_VSI_QUEUES
i40evf_dev_start(): configure queues failed

Our application requires 1 Rx queue and 4 Tx queues.

When I change the number of Tx queues from 4 to 1 the failure is not seen.  However our application requires 4 Tx queues so not an option.
This same VM ran successfully when ESXi host was 5.5.

We had our IT department do a sanity check on the ESXi host and upgrade any VIBs recommended, but did not resolve the problem.

Tried testpmd and also failed for DPDK start.

Thanks,
Ed



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Re: VM SR-IOV VF fails dpdk

[Stephen Hemminger]

On Tue, 12 Dec 2023 16:33:51 +0000
"Lombardo, Ed" <Ed.Lombardo@netscout.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> I am finding an issue on ESXi host running our Linux VM application.  The DPDK version is 17.11 and VM OS is 3.10.0-1160.81.1.el7.x86_64.
> ESXi host version is 7.03.
> The NIC is the Intel x710-DA2 in SR-IOV mode.  Configured on ESXi host 4 virtual functions.
> Our VM has one of the four virtual functions from the x710 NIC for DPDK port.
> 
> In our application, when we initialize the port and all the checks pass, but rte_eth_dev_start() fails for -1 return code.
> The failure from gdb is:
> i40evf_configure_vsi_queues(): Failed to execute command of VIRTCHNL_OP_CONFIG_VSI_QUEUES
> i40evf_dev_start(): configure queues failed
> 
> Our application requires 1 Rx queue and 4 Tx queues.
> 
> When I change the number of Tx queues from 4 to 1 the failure is not seen.  However our application requires 4 Tx queues so not an option.
> This same VM ran successfully when ESXi host was 5.5.
> 
> We had our IT department do a sanity check on the ESXi host and upgrade any VIBs recommended, but did not resolve the problem.
> 
> Tried testpmd and also failed for DPDK start.
> 
> Thanks,
> Ed

Using a 5 year old version of DPDK is not recommended or supported.

Not familiar with VMWare internals, but suspect that it requires
that the number of Rx and Tx queues are the same.