Networking Support; Driver Parameters; Int_Mode; Disable_Tpa - Qlogic 8400 Series User Manual

6–VMware Driver Software

Networking Support

Networking Support
This section describes the bnx2x VMware ESXi driver for the QLogic 8400/3400
Series PCIe 10 GbE network adapters.

Driver Parameters

Several optional parameters can be supplied as a command line argument to the
vmkload_mod command. These parameters can also be set with the
esxcfg-module command. See the man page for more information.

int_mode

The optional parameter int_mode is used to force using an interrupt mode other
than MSI-X. By default, the driver will try to enable MSI-X if it is supported by the
kernel. If MSI-X is not attainable, then the driver will try to enable MSI if it is
supported by the kernel. If MSI is not attainable, then the driver will use the legacy
INTx mode.
Set the int_mode parameter to 1 as shown below to force using the legacy INTx
mode on all 8400/3400 Series network adapters in the system.
vmkload_mod bnx2x int_mode=1
Set the int_mode parameter to 2 as shown below to force using MSI mode on all
8400/3400 Series network adapters in the system.
vmkload_mod bnx2x int_mode=2

disable_tpa

The optional parameter disable_tpa can be used to disable the Transparent
Packet Aggregation (TPA) feature. By default, the driver will aggregate TCP
packets, but if you would like to disable this advanced feature, it can be done.
Set the disable_tpa parameter to 1 as shown below to disable the TPA feature on
all 8400/3400 Series network adapters in the system.
vmkload_mod bnx2x.ko disable_tpa=1
Use ethtool to disable TPA (LRO) for a specific network adapter.

num_rx_queues

The optional parameter num_rx_queues may be used to set the number of Rx
queues on kernels starting from 2.6.24 when multi_mode is set to 1 and interrupt
mode is MSI-X. Number of Rx queues must be equal to or greater than the
number of Tx queues (see num_tx_queues parameter). If the interrupt mode is
different than MSI-X (see int_mode parameter), then then the number of Rx
queues will be set to 1, discarding the value of this parameter.
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