Looking for guidance on handling VMXNET3 drivers

[Patrick Mahan]

On 2/12/26 10:38 PM, Patrick Mahan wrote:
> All,
> 
> I've been help development a DPDK application that (mainly) runs on dedicated 
> hardware (i40e NICS), Intel CPUs.  However, we have been asked to see if this can 
> be run in the ESXi (VMware) environment.  This seemed fine as we have the VMXNET3 
> PMD and aside from some missing features, it seemed to work.
> 
> Until we tried to down the port, using rte_eth_dev_set_down() API.  This API is 
> returning -95 (EOPNOTSUPP) which I take to mean that its link state cannot be 
> changed.
> 

Sorry, I mistakenly put the incorrect function name.  I meant 
rte_eth_dev_set_link_down().

Patrick

> I checked the PMD documentation for this driver and cannot find any mention that 
> this is a limitation.
> 
> I've never looked at the linux implementation (which our older, pre-DPDK) uses 
> but it allows the interface to be marked down.
> 
> Is my only work-around to stop the device instead?
> 
> Thanks for any wisdom...
> 
> Patrick Mahan