VMXNET 3 Driver

[peconi]

Seems VMXNET 2 is supported, but it would be really nice to get VMXNET 3 driver in as well.

Thanks.

 

[Bever]

/signed

I have two virtuals. One Ubuntu with vmxnet 3 and one freenas with e1000. A quick iperf shows this:

C:\Users\Bever>D:\Downloads\iperf.exe -c 192.168.0.120
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.0.120, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 8.00 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[156] local 192.168.0.169 port 51515 connected with 192.168.0.120 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[156] 0.0-10.0 sec 312 MBytes 262 Mbits/sec

C:\Users\Bever>D:\Downloads\iperf.exe -c 192.168.0.132
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.0.132, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 8.00 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[156] local 192.168.0.169 port 51517 connected with 192.168.0.132 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[156] 0.0-10.0 sec 189 MBytes 159 Mbits/sec

The freenas being 192.168.0.132

 

[Bever]

Just upgraded the e1000 to vmxnet2:

C:\Users\Bever>D:\Downloads\iperf.exe -c 192.168.0.132
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.0.132, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 8.00 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[156] local 192.168.0.169 port 52029 connected with 192.168.0.132 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[156] 0.0-10.0 sec 242 MBytes 202 Mbits/sec

Increased performance, but not the same as vmxnet3. Maybe it can be included in 8.2...

 

[Bever]

Did some more tests to show the difference between freenas vmxnet2 and ubuntu vmxnet3:

Between ubuntu and freenas:


root@mediaserver:~# iperf -c 192.168.0.132
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.0.132, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 21.0 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 3] local 192.168.0.120 port 50325 connected with 192.168.0.132 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 3] 0.0-10.0 sec 3.81 GBytes 3.27 Gbits/sec


Between two ubuntu's (vmxnet3):


root@mediaserver:~# iperf -s
------------------------------------------------------------
Server listening on TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 85.3 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 4] local 192.168.0.120 port 5001 connected with 192.168.0.128 port 60323
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 4] 0.0-10.0 sec 18.3 GBytes 15.7 Gbits/sec


15.7 Gbit. Seems pretty fast to me :) All this to support my vote for vmxnet 3 in freenas 8.2 :)

 

[jgreco]

Beware that while the VMXNET drivers are very good at what they're good at, they're abysmal (as in as-bad-as-not-working-at-all) at some common use scenarios. We ran into several issues, but I think it was the complete inability to work with CARP that did VMXNET2 in for us here, though I'm not in a position to review our notes right now. Test thoroughly and be sure to be able to switch to EM if needed; the EM emulation is pretty much first class. The ability to jam in multiple virtual interfaces is probably an acceptable workaround for some vlan strangeness we saw, unless you need large numbers of vlans.

 

[cmessin1]

I would like to bump the request for VMXNET3. In my experience, it is a vast improvement from VMXNET2. I have yet to verify if VMXNET3 supports jumbo frames as yet on FREEBSD (it does on Linux), but ifit does, then that would be one very big reason to support it. I know it is in the latest official vmware tools package for FreeBSD.

I will raise this on the bug thread, but I will also point out that as of 8.3-Beta 2, it appears that there is a significant problem with VMXNET2.

 

[jgreco]

I will raise this on the bug thread, but I will also point out that as of 8.3-Beta 2, it appears that there is a significant problem with VMXNET2.

Which is ...?

 

[cmessin1]

I did file a bug on it. I can tell you that at a minimum it is casuing some major issue with Apache to the point that I simply cannot get the GUI to load at all. It will obviously connect because the Window title changes to the correct one for FreeNAS but the page just sits there loading forever. I was able to ping. As soon as I switched back to E1000, everything worked fine. I did not try switching back after the basic setup was done to seef if shares or SSH worked correctly, so I do not know if the issue is limited to Apached or not, but it would surprise me if it was.