Dell Intel PRO Family of Adapters - Manual (Page 109)

MACVLAN
ixgbevf supports MACVLAN on those kernels that have the feature included. Kernel support for MACVLAN can be
tested by checking if the MACVLAN driver is loaded. The user can run 'lsmod | grep macvlan' to see if the
MACVLAN driver is loaded or run 'modprobe macvlan' to try to load the MACVLAN driver.
It may be necessary to update to a recent release of the iproute2 package to get support of MACVLAN via the 'ip' com-
mand.
NAPI
NAPI (Rx polling mode) is supported in the ixgbevf driver and is always enabled. For more information on NAPI, go to:
ftp://robur.slu.se/pub/Linux/net-development/NAPI/usenix-paper.tgz .
Known Issues
NOTE: After installing the driver, if your Intel network connection is not working, verify that you have installed the
correct driver.
Driver Compilation
When trying to compile the driver by running make install, the following error may occur: "Linux kernel source not con-
figured - missing version.h"
To solve this issue, create the version.h file by going to the Linux source tree and entering:
make include/linux/version.h
Multiple Interfaces on Same Ethernet Broadcast Network
Due to the default ARP behavior on Linux, it is not possible to have one system on two IP networks in the same Eth-
ernet broadcast domain (non-partitioned switch) behave as expected. All Ethernet interfaces will respond to IP traffic for
any IP address assigned to the system. This results in unbalanced receive traffic.
If you have multiple interfaces in a server, turn on ARP filtering by entering:
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/all/arp_filter
(this only works if your kernel's version is higher than 2.4.5), or install the interfaces in separate broadcast domains.
NOTE: This setting is not saved across reboots. The configuration change can be made permanent by adding
the line:
net.ipv4.conf.all.arp_filter= 1 to the file /etc/sysctl.conf
or
install the interfaces in separate broadcast domains (either in different switches or in a switch par-
titioned to VLANs).
MSI-X Issues with Kernels Between 2.6.19 and 2.6.21 (inclusive)
Kernel panics and instability may be observed on any MSI-X hardware if you use irqbalance with kernels between
2.6.19 and 2.6.21. If these types of problems are encountered, you may disable the irqbalance daemon or upgrade to a
newer kernel.
Rx Page Allocation Errors
Page allocation failure order:0 errors may occur under stress with kernels 2.6.25 and above. This is caused by the way
the Linux kernel reports this stressed condition.
Host may Reboot after Removing PF when VF is Active in Guest
If you are using kernel versions earlier than 3.2, do not unload the PF driver with active VFs. Doing this will cause your
VFs to stop working until you reload the PF driver and may cause a spontaneous reboot of your system.