ESXi 5.0 doesn't have SR-IOV support (it's in the code, but is disabled and not usable for customers). VMware introduced SR-IOV support, including out of the box support for Intel Niantic 10GbE NICs, in ESXi 5.1. 

-- 
Bhavesh Davda 

----- Original Message -----

> From: "Henry Wang" <wang_hr@neusoft.com>
> To: "Rui Vaz (ruvaz)" <ruvaz@cisco.com>
> Cc: dev@dpdk.org
> Sent: Thursday, May 9, 2013 6:18:04 PM
> Subject: Re: [dpdk-dev] rte_eth_dev_count() returns 0

> As far as I known, DPDK(1.2.3) only supports the following NICs:
> (1) Intel 82576, 82580, I350 chipset based NICs;
> (2) Intel 82599, X540T, X520T chipset based NICs;
> (3) virtual NICs generated by SR-IOV from (2).

> If the NICs on your C220 M3 is one of (2), you can run l2fwdvf OR l3fwdvf
> successfully with SR-IOV enabled in ESXi.
> And I do not know wheather ESXi 5.0 VMM has SR-IOV function or not.

> Further more, please reference to DPDK release notes.
> http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/release-notes/intel-dpdk-release-notes.pdf

> On Fri, May 10, 2013 at 9:00 AM, Rui Vaz (ruvaz) < ruvaz@cisco.com > wrote:

> > Hi dev-dpdk,
> 

> > I am following a Intel DPDK Step by Step Instruction found here:
> > http://www.slideshare.net/hisaki/intel-dpdk-step-by-step-instructions
> 

> > My Hello app from the DPDK examples runs fine, but I get the following
> > error
> > when running the l2fwd app:
> 

> > “EAL: Error – exiting with code: 1
> 

> > Cause: no Ethernet ports – bye”
> 

> > The rte_eth_dev_count() call returns 0, I am using a CentOS 6.3 Virtual
> > Machine on VMWare esxi 5.0 on a Cisco UCS C220 M3 which comes with Xeon
> > E5-2600.
> 

> > I would really appreciate If you could provide some help to solve this
> > issue.
> 

> > Thank you,
> 

> > Rui
> 

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