Difference between SR-IOV Network adapter and PCI VF NIC Device for guests question.

[ljvb]

So I have been playing around...

Goal.. assign VF nic to each guest without using the virtual switch, and setting up the guest with appropriate vlan config. The physical nic is connected to the switch port with appropriate vlans.

When I assign a VF to a guest using PCI device, it does not work at all, the guest sees the interface, but no traffic passes.
When I add a network device, and select SR-IOV device (instead of VX or E1000), it works just fine but I have to select a virtual switch network.. which I am trying to avoid).

The guests vary, I have tried with Windows, FreeBSD and Linux

 

[ljvb]

Well.. since apparently no one else can answer.. after a lot of fighting.. I managed to figure out my problems.. and learned a little.

As for why you have to use a network card and select the SR-IOV interface.. it is how VMWare applies vlan tags. The VF is not actually using the port group to transit traffic. All VMWare is doing is applying VLAN tags to the packets so your guest does not have to.

A side effect, of my problem, no matter what I did, no traffic would pass. Apparently this was because the 4 10G interfaces were in a LACP configuration.. and the VF's only occupied 1 out of the 4 links, which the switch rejected.. VFs and the parent nics cannot be a part of a LACP/LAG group.

Everything works now.