VF bound to Kernel driver

[ahalimx86]

Hi,
Is it possible to have the VFs bound to Linux kernel drivers and PF with igb_uio then have VFd to configure those VFs? Or it is a hard requirement to have VF bound to vfio-pci/igb_uio?

I'm considering a use-case where I might have some VFs bound to Kernel driver and some to the vfio-pci. Are there any implications one should be particularly concerned about such scenario? Thanks.

[azelezniak]

You can bind VFs to kernel ixfbevf driver as well as igb_uio/vfio-pci or pci-stub if you use VM’s.
In any case VFd has to be started before VFs could be used.

[ahalimx86]

Thats great, thanks for the info. What about i40evf with Fortville NICs(X710)? I'm testing with this NIC at the moment. I have tried using VF's with both kernel driver and dpdk driver. It looks like VFd is applying the VF configurations regardless of the driver type, but I haven't verified them. However, I noticed when I stop VFd daemon the system crushes down. I was wondering if this was because of the VF drivers.

[azelezniak]

X710 NICs were not thoroughly tested yet.
Try do unload kernel i40evf driver or stop DPDK application bound to VF before stopping VFd