Copyright(c) 2013 - 2019 Intel Corporation

This release includes the native ixgben VMware ESX Driver for Intel(R) Ethernet Controllers 82599, x520, x540, x550, x552 and x553 family

Driver version: 1.8.7

Supported ESXi release: 6.7

=================================================================================

Contents
--------

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

=================================================================================

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

- Receive Side Scaling (RSS)
   Driver spreads incomming traffic among multiple CPUs providing more efficient utilization of resources.
   RSS is enabled by default. It can be managed through esxcfg-module command with RSS, DRSS and DevRSS parameters.
   As DRSS and RSS are mutually exclusive in case of setting both of them, RSS has the precedence over DRSS.

   NOTE: Reboot is needed after setting RSS mode.

- Recovery Mode
   A device will enter recovery mode if a device's NVM becomes corrupted.
   If a device enters recovery mode because of an interrupted NVM update, you should attempt to finish the update.
   If the device is in recovery mode because of a corrupted NVM, use the nvmupdate utility to reset the NVM back to
   factory defaults.

   NOTE: You must power cycle your system after using Recovery Mode to completely reset the firmware and hardware.

- Backplane devices
   Backplane devices are operating in auto mode only, and thus the user cannot manually change speed settings.


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

- Rx, Tx, TSO checksum offload
- Netqueue (VMDQ)
- Netqueue UDP RSS for VxLAN
- Hardware VLAN filtering
- Rx Hardware VLAN stripping
- Tx Hardware VLAN inserting
- Interrupt moderation
- SR-IOV (support one queue per VF, VF MTU, and VF VLAN)
   Valid range for max_vfs:
   1-61 (VMDQ default)
   1-63 (VMDQ set to 0 or 1)
   When VMDQ is set to 2 or more, the maximum number of VFs supported is 63 – VMDQ.
- VMDQ and SR-IOV co-existence
- Link Auto-negotiation
- Flow Control
- Management APIs for CIM Provider, OCSD/OCBB
- Firmware recovery mode.
- Wake on LAN (WoL) support.
- Support for handling PCIe link failure or surprise removal of LAN controllers.


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

- RSS (Receive Side Scaling)


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

- None


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

- Added priority field to VLAN header
- Added notification of link partner when Link Flow Control settings are changed
- Reduced initialization time after uplink is set down then up


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

- If the VF's guest VLAN interface and the VF's portgroup have the same VLAN ID, packets appear on the VF's guest VLAN
  interface instead of appearing on VF's main interface for 82599 and x540 adapters due to the HW limitation.
   Workaround: none

- On 82599 adapters emulated interfaces in a VLAN ALL portgroup may not be able to communicate with VF interfaces of
  the same PF. 82599 adapters lack a HW feature that allows the driver to configure VLAN ALL mode for loopback
  traffic in the emulated data path.
   Workaround: none

- Incoming VLAN traffic is dropped after enabling software emulation of VLAN tagging and untagging for given PF. This
  has been introduced intentionally to drop VLAN tagged packets which do not have an active destination endpoint.
   Workaround: none

- Very low throughput when sending IPv6 to a Linux VM that uses a VMXNET3 adapter
   Workaround: Please look at the VMware Knowledge Base 2057874


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 ixgben

- Set a driver module parameter (clearing other parameter settings)
  esxcli system module parameters set -m ixgben -p RSS=0,1

- Set a driver module parameter (other parameter settings left unchanged)
  esxcli system module parameters set -m ixgben -a -p RSS=0,1

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

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

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

- Disable kernel VLAN issue workaround
  esxcli system module parameters set -m ixgben -a -p "VlanRemoveWorkaround=0,0"

- Enable RSS on the 1st port, disable on the 2nd port
  esxcfg-module -s "RSS=1,0" ixgben


=================================================================================

Previously Released Versions:
-----------------------------
- Driver Version: 1.7.20
   Hardware Supported: Intel(R) Ethernet Controllers 82599, x520, x540, x550, and x552 family
   Supported ESXi releases: 6.0 and 6.7
   Compatible ESXi version: 6.5
   New Features Supported:
      - Support for handling PCIe link failure or surprise removal of LAN controllers.
   New Hardware Supported:
      - None
   Bug fixes:
      - Fixed high CPU usage when SFP+ module is not inserted in the NIC.


- Driver Version: 1.7.17
   Hardware Supported: Intel(R) Ethernet Controllers 82599, x520, x540, x550, and x552 family
   Supported ESXi releases: 6.0 and 6.7
   Compatible ESXi version: 6.5
   New Features Supported:
      - Added Wake on LAN (WoL) support.
   New Hardware Supported:
      - None
   Bug Fixes:
      - Fixed driver version reporting as unavailable in iDRAC.
      - Fixed incorrect branding strings for specific supported devices.
   Known Issues:
      - If the VF's guest VLAN interface and the VF's portgroup have the same VLAN ID, packets appear on the VF's guest VLAN
        interface for 82599 and x540 adapters due to the HW limitation.
         Workaround: none
      - On 82599 adapters emulated interfaces in a VLAN ALL portgroup may not be able to communicate with VF interfaces of
        the same PF. 82599 adapters lack a HW feature that allows the driver to configure VLAN ALL mode for loopback
        traffic in the emulated data path.
         Workaround: none
      - Incoming VLAN traffic is dropped after enabling software emulation of VLAN tagging and untagging for given PF. This
        has been introduced intentionally to drop VLAN tagged packets which do not have an active destination endpoint.
         Workaround: none
      - 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 Version: 1.7.15
   Hardware Supported: Intel(R) Ethernet Controllers 82599, x520, x540, x550, and x552 family
   Supported ESXi releases: 6.0 and 6.7
   Compatible ESXi version: 6.5
   New Features Supported:
      - None
   New Hardware Supported:
      - None
   Bug Fixes:
      - Fixed VLAN tagged packets accepted after turning off last VM
      - Fixed VF connection issues when MAC address is changed
      - Fixed missing OROM version in 'esxcli network nic get -n <vmnic>' output
      - Fixed untagged packets being received by a VF in a VLAN-tagged portgroup
      - Fixed VF being able to send VLAN-tagged packets despite being in a untagged portgroup
      - Fixed intermittent Tx hang due to a race condition
   Known issues:
      - If the VF's guest VLAN interface and the VF's portgroup have the same VLAN ID, packets appear on the VF's guest VLAN
        interface for 82599 and x540 adapters due to the HW limitation.
         Workaround: none
      - On 82599 adapters emulated interfaces in a VLAN ALL portgroup may not be able to communicate with VF interfaces of
        the same PF. 82599 adapters lack a HW feature that allows the driver to configure VLAN ALL mode for loopback
        traffic in the emulated data path.
         Workaround: none
      - Incoming VLAN traffic is dropped after enabling software emulation of VLAN tagging and untagging for given PF. This
        has been introduced intentionally to drop VLAN tagged packets which do not have an active destination endpoint.
         Workaround: none
      - 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 Version: 1.7.10
   Hardware Supported: Intel(R) Ethernet Controllers 82599, x520, x540, x550, and x552 family
   Supported ESXi releases: 6.0 and 6.7
   Compatible ESXi version: 6.5
   New Features Supported:
      - Added firmware recovery mode.
   New Hardware Supported:
      - X553 support
   Bug Fixes:
      - Fixed traffic hang between VM with VF adapter and VM with vmxnet3 after disabling/enabling vmnic.
      - Fixed an issue with VM's being able to communicate over VLANs in VGT mode when Port Group had VLANs set to None(0)
      - Fix for silicon errata #26: TX hang observed on some queues during regular traffic with VFLR on the fly.
  Please see X550 specification update for more information.
      - Fix for dropped tagged loopback traffic originated from VF.
      - Fix for lost VLAN connectivity once the last VM in a port group has been shut down.
   Known Issues:
      - Unable to reload VF driver on SLES 12SP2 and ESXi 6.0 update 3
         Workaround: upgrade to ESXi 6.0 update 3a or ESXi 6.5
      - 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 Version: 1.7.1
   Hardware Supported: Intel(R) Ethernet Controllers 82599, x520, x540, x550, and x552 family
   Supported ESXi release: 6.7
   New Features Supported:
      - New ixgben driver for ESXi 6.7 based on the ESX 6.0 ixgben v1.6.5 driver with additional bug fixes
   New Hardware Supported:
      - Added new devices support for specific OEMs
   Bug Fixes:
      - Reduced driver's memory footprint
      - Fix for duplicate multicast / broadcast packets during heavy traffic.
      - Fix for X552/X557-AT adapters linking at 1G speed after a NIC down/up cycle.
      - Fix for the NIC down procedure hanging when heavy traffic is running.
      - Fix for lost connectivity when VMDQ is disabled and SR-IOV is enabled
   Known Issues:
      - Unable to reload VF driver on SLES 12SP2 and ESXi 6.0 update 3
         Workaround: upgrade to ESXi 6.0 update 3a or ESXi 6.5
      - Very low throughput when sending IPv6 to a Linux VM that uses a VMXNET3 adapter
         Workaround: Please look at the VMware Knowledge Base 2057874



