VMXNET 3 driver fails to get activated in ESXi
Article ID: 337947
Updated On:
Products
VMware vSphere ESXi
Issue/Introduction
- ESXi 5.5 Update 3 and 6.0 permits only a maximum Rx Ring #2 size of 2048.
Note: ESXi versions prior to ESXi 5.5 Update 3 allowed a Rx Ring #2 size of 4096. - Device activation fails if the Rx Ring #2 size is set to a value higher than 2048.
- This issue occurs with any Windows, Linux, and Intel DPDK VMXNET3 drivers that attempt to set the Rx Ring #2 size to a value greater than 2048.
- In the vmware.log file of the affected virtual machine, you see entries similar to:
2015-11-07T14:23:11.884Z| vcpu-0| I120: VMXNET3 user: failed to activate Ethernet0, status: 0xbad0001
Note: The preceding log excerpts are only examples. Date, time, and environmental variables may vary depending on your environment.
Environment
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5
Resolution
This issue occurs when the host settings have been changed in 5.5 or 6.0 which prevents a Network Interface Card with an RX ring size 2 buffer size > 2048 from communicating. By default the value of the RX ring size 2 is 4096.
This is a known issue affecting ESXi 5.5 Update 3 and 6.0.
For ESXi 5.5 Update 3
This issue is resolved in ESXi 5.5 Patch 08. For more information, see VMware ESXi 5.5, Patch Release ESXi550-201608001 (2144359).
For ESXi 6.0
This issue is resolved in ESXi 6.0 Patch 03. For more information, see VMware ESXi 6.0, Patch Release ESXi600-201608001 (2145663).
To work around this issue, change the Rx Ring #2 to 2048 prior to migrating the virtual machine back to the 5.5 hosts.
Steps to change the Rx Ring size would be mentioned below:
- Log in to the guest OS.
- Open Device Manager.
- Click on Network adapters.
- Right-click the network adapter for which you want to change the settings, and then click properties.
- Select Advanced tab.
- Select Rx Ring #2 size from the scroll bar.
- Set the value to 2048 manually.
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