Hi

My application developed with the DPDK, we found out one error message when my application run in the VMware platform.

[2025-04-15 03:01:09]:: --[vmxnet3_dev_start:961] hw->version: 6, rss_hf: 3380 --^M^M

[2025-04-15 03:01:09]:: --[vmxnet3_rss_configure:1434] rss_hf: 3380 --^M^M

[2025-04-15 03:01:09]:: --[vmxnet3_v4_rss_configure:1381] rss_hf: 3380 --^M^M

[2025-04-15 03:01:09]:: vmxnet3_v4_rss_configure(): Set RSS fields (v4) failed: 1^M^M

[2025-04-15 03:01:09]:: vmxnet3_dev_start(): Failed to configure v4 RSS^M^M

From the debug logs, it seems that the vmxnet3 device failed to configure the v4 RSS.

We can found these informations from the DPDK’s code snippet:

rss_hf = 3380 = 0xd34

So the RSS configure is this:

#define VMXNET3_RSS_OFFLOAD_ALL ( \

    RTE_ETH_RSS_IPV4 | \

    RTE_ETH_RSS_NONFRAG_IPV4_TCP | \

    RTE_ETH_RSS_IPV6 | \

    RTE_ETH_RSS_NONFRAG_IPV6_TCP)

#define VMXNET3_V4_RSS_MASK ( \

    RTE_ETH_RSS_NONFRAG_IPV4_UDP | \

RTE_ETH_RSS_NONFRAG_IPV6_UDP)

The function call vmxnet3_rss_configure() is works fine but the function call vmxnet3_v4_rss_configure() failed:

    if (VMXNET3_VERSION_GE_4(hw) &&

        dev->data->dev_conf.rxmode.mq_mode == RTE_ETH_MQ_RX_RSS) {

        /* Check for additional RSS  */

        ret = vmxnet3_v4_rss_configure(dev);

        if (ret != VMXNET3_SUCCESS) {

            PMD_INIT_LOG(ERR, "Failed to configure v4 RSS");

            return ret;

        }

}

/*

* Additional RSS configurations based on vmxnet v4+ APIs

*/

int

vmxnet3_v4_rss_configure(struct rte_eth_dev *dev)

{

    struct vmxnet3_hw *hw = dev->data->dev_private;

    Vmxnet3_DriverShared *shared = hw->shared;

    Vmxnet3_CmdInfo *cmdInfo = &shared->cu.cmdInfo;

    struct rte_eth_rss_conf *port_rss_conf;

    uint64_t rss_hf;

    uint32_t ret;

    PMD_INIT_FUNC_TRACE();

    cmdInfo->setRSSFields = 0;

    port_rss_conf = &dev->data->dev_conf.rx_adv_conf.rss_conf;

    printf("--[%s:%d] rss_hf: %llu --\n", __FUNCTION__, __LINE__, port_rss_conf->rss_hf);

    if ((port_rss_conf->rss_hf & VMXNET3_MANDATORY_V4_RSS) !=

        VMXNET3_MANDATORY_V4_RSS) {

        PMD_INIT_LOG(WARNING, "RSS: IPv4/6 TCP is required for vmxnet3 v4 RSS,"

                 "automatically setting it");

        port_rss_conf->rss_hf |= VMXNET3_MANDATORY_V4_RSS;

    }

    rss_hf = port_rss_conf->rss_hf &

        (VMXNET3_V4_RSS_MASK | VMXNET3_RSS_OFFLOAD_ALL);

    if (rss_hf & RTE_ETH_RSS_NONFRAG_IPV4_TCP)

        cmdInfo->setRSSFields |= VMXNET3_RSS_FIELDS_TCPIP4;

    if (rss_hf & RTE_ETH_RSS_NONFRAG_IPV6_TCP)

        cmdInfo->setRSSFields |= VMXNET3_RSS_FIELDS_TCPIP6;

    if (rss_hf & RTE_ETH_RSS_NONFRAG_IPV4_UDP)

        cmdInfo->setRSSFields |= VMXNET3_RSS_FIELDS_UDPIP4;

    if (rss_hf & RTE_ETH_RSS_NONFRAG_IPV6_UDP)

        cmdInfo->setRSSFields |= VMXNET3_RSS_FIELDS_UDPIP6;

VMXNET3_WRITE_BAR1_REG(hw, VMXNET3_REG_CMD,

                   VMXNET3_CMD_SET_RSS_FIELDS);

    ret = VMXNET3_READ_BAR1_REG(hw, VMXNET3_REG_CMD);

    if (ret != VMXNET3_SUCCESS) {

        PMD_DRV_LOG(ERR, "Set RSS fields (v4) failed: %d", ret);

    }

return ret;

}

It seems like the VMXNET3_WRITE_BAR1_REG failed, but don’t know why this happened.

My DPDK version is 22.11.1 and the vmxnet3 driver version is 1.6.0.0-k-NAPI

BTW we just upgraded VM compatibility to ESXi 8.0 U2 and later (VM version 21), then our application run with this error logs.

The previous VM compatibility is ESXi 6.5 and later (VM version 13), and our application works fine. It is because the vmxnet3 hw version is 3, so it will not trigger to call the V4 RSS configure.

Could someone help to check this issue? Or maybe I missed something?