Copyright(c) 2013 - 2018 Intel Corporation

This release includes the native i40en VMware ESX Driver for Intel(R) Ethernet Controllers X710, XL710, XXV710, and X722 family

Driver version: 1.7.1

Supported ESXi release: 6.7

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Contents
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- Important Notes
- Supported Features
- New Features
- New Hardware Supported
- Bug Fixes
- Known Issues and Workarounds
- Command Line Parameters
- Previously Released Versions

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Important Notes:
----------------

New i40en driver for ESXi 6.7 based on the ESX 6.0/6.5 i40en v1.5.8 driver with additional bug fixes listed below

Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) supports Intel X710 and XL710 adapters with FW 6.0 and later.
Set LLDP driver load param to allow or disallow LLDP frames forwarded to the network stack

  LLDP agent is enabled in firmware by default (Default FW setting)
  Set LLDP=0 to disable LLDP agent in firmware
  Set LLDP=1 to enable LLDP agent in firmware
  Set LLDP to anything other then 0 or 1 will fallback to the default setting (LLDP enabled in firmware)
  LLDP agent is always enabled in firmware when MFP (Multi Functional Port, i.e. NPAR) is enabled, regardless of the driver parameter LLDP setting.

When the LLDP agent is enabled in firmware, the ESXi OS will not receive LLDP frames and Link Layer Discovery Protocol information will not be available on the physical adapter inside ESXi.

Please note that the LLDP driver module parameter is an array of values. Each value represents LLDP agent setting for a physical port.

Please refer to "Command Line Parameters" section for suggestions on how to set driver module parameters.


Supported Features:
-------------------

- Rx, Tx, TSO checksum offload
- Netqueue (VMDQ)
- VxLAN Offload
- Geneve Offload
- Hardware VLAN filtering
- Rx Hardware VLAN stripping
- Tx Hardware VLAN inserting
- Interrupt moderation
- SR-IOV (supports four queues per VF, VF MTU, and VF VLAN)
        Valid range for max_vfs
        1-32 (4 port devices)
        1-64 (2 port devices)
        1-128 (1 port devices)
- Link Auto-negotiation
- Flow Control
- Management APIs for CIM Provider, OCSD/OCBB


New Features:
-------------

- None


New Hardware Supported:
-----------------------

- None


Bug Fixes:
----------

- Reduced driver's memory footprint
- Prevent VxLAN port reprogramming failures after changing VxLAN port more than 16 times
- Prevent dropped packets during link speed change
- Don't show a link down message on SFP+ module removal
- Fix for dropped emulated adapter traffic between MFP mode master and slave partitions
- Fix for the NIC down procedure hanging when heavy traffic is running.
- Fixed intermittent link flap after running NVM Update
- Fixed multicast traffic not being received on emulated adapters when a VM with an SR-IOV VF adapter is powered on
- Fix for SR-IOV VF adapters hanging when PF is brought down
- Fixed issue with enabling 128 VF's on single port adapters
- Show correct cable types for AUI, MII and 1000BaseT-Optical link types
- Fix intermittent PSOD during NVM Update
- Fix for MDD event and TX hang caused by TSO_MSS option smaller than 64 bytes
- Fixed issue where adapter could end up in a reset loop after a TX hang event
- Show an error message when trying to set invalid pause frame parameters
- Fix for 'Failed to add Geneve cloud filter' message when running heavy Geneve traffic
- Fix for VF driver hang when GOS requested VF promiscuous mode
- Fix for intermittent packet loss when link is brought down and up


Known Issues and Workarounds:
----------------------------

- Very low throughput when sending IPv6 to a Linux VM that uses a VMXNET3 adapter
	Workaround: Please look at the VMware Knowledge Base 2057874
- Driver is unable to configure the maximum 128 Virtual Functions per adapter due to the kernel limitation
	Workaround: Please look at the VMware Knowledge Base 2147604
- Cannot set maximum values for VMDQ and SR-IOV VFs on a port at the same time
	Workaround: Reduce the VMDQ or max_vfs value for the port
- In MFP adapter mode multicast traffic does not work on emulated adapters when a VM with an SR-IOV VF adapter is powered on
	Workaround: Do not mix SR-IOV and emulated traffic in MFP mode
- Setting Geneve options length larger than 124 bytes causes VLAN-tagged Geneve traffic to drop
	Workaround: Don't set Geneve options length to more than 124 bytes or don't assign a VLAN to Geneve tunnel
- In RHEL 7.2 an IPv6 connection persists between VF adapters after changing port group VLAN mode from trunk (VGT) to port VLAN (VST)
	Workaround: Upgrade to RHEL 7.3 or newer. This is a Linux kernel bug that causes packets to arrive at the wrong virtual interface.
- X722 adapter causes PSOD on Supermicro X10DAi
	Workaround: None


Command Line Parameters:
------------------------

ethtool is not supported for native driver.
Please use esxcli, vsish, or esxcfg-* to set or get the driver information, for example:

- Get the driver supported module parameters
  esxcli system module parameters list -m i40en

- Set a driver module parameter (clearing other parameter settings)
  esxcli system module parameters set -m i40en -p LLDP=0

- Set a driver module parameter (other parameter settings left unchanged)
  esxcli system module parameters set -m i40en -a -p LLDP=0

- Get the driver info
  esxcli network nic get -n vmnic1

- Get an uplink stats
  esxcli network nic stats -n vmnic1

- Get the private stats
  vsish -e get /net/pNics/vmnic1/stats


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Previously Released Versions:
-----------------------------

- None

