Copyright(c) 2013 - 2019 Intel Corporation

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

Driver version: 1.7.20

Supported ESXi releases: 6.0
Compatible ESXi versions: 6.5, 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:
----------------

- 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.


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

- None


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

- None


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

- Fixed high CPU usage when SFP+ module is not inserted in the NIC.


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

- Link flapping after powering off the VM or during vMotion.
   Workaround: use module parameter to disable the driver workaround for a kernel issue (lost VLAN connectivity once the
   last VM in a port group has been shut down).
   The kernel bug has been fixed in ESXi 6.5 U1 (and later releases), in which case the workaround can be safely disabled.

- 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

- 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


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"


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

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

- 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
      - 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: 1.7.15
   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
      - 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: 1.7.10
   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:
      - None
   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.
      - 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


- Driver Version: 1.6.5
   Hardware Supported: Intel(R) Ethernet Controllers 82599, x520, x540, x550, and x552 family
   Supported ESXi release: 6.0
   Compatible ESXi version: 6.5 and 6.7
   New Features Supported:
      - None
   New Hardware Supported:
      - Added new devices support for specific OEMs
   Bug Fixes:
      - Add a VF hang detection and take an appropriate action to prevent infinite reset loop
      - Show proper link speed using dual speed optics module connected to 1G link partner
      - Fix the issue where the driver may fail to load after an unexpected system reboot
      - Fix for Multiple Link Down messages after unplug a cable
      - Fix VF link status where it was not updated when PF link state changed
   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


- Driver Version: 1.5.3
   Hardware Supported: Intel(R) Ethernet Controllers 82599, x520, x540, x550, and x552 family
   Supported ESXi release: 6.0
   Compatible ESXi version: 6.5 and 6.7
   New Features Supported:
      - Added support for OEM firmware version. If OEM specific adapter is detected, OEM product version in firmware
        version string is reported instead of etrack id.
      - Added ability to get/set Tx/Rx ring buffer size using esxcli command
   New Hardware Supported:
      - Added new devices support for specific OEMs
   Bug Fixes:
      - Fixed possible Tx/Rx queue race condition when there are heavy resets followed by link down/up cycles, which lead to an IOMMU fault
      - Fixed Tx hang issue when enabling 64 VFs
      - Fixed vmknic and VF communication issue when both are configured using the same PF port
      - Fixed zero temperature value for hardware that supports temperature sensors
   Known Issues:
      - None


- Driver Version: 1.4.1
   Hardware Supported: Intel(R) Ethernet Controllers 82599, x520, x540, x550, and x552 family
   Supported ESXi release: 6.0
   Compatible ESXi version: 6.5 and 6.7
   Features Supported:
      - Rx, Tx, TSO checksum offload
      - Netqueue (VMDQ)
      - SR-IOV (support one queue per VF, VF MTU, and VF VLAN)
      - VMDQ and SR-IOV co-existence
      - Netqueue UDP RSS for VxLAN
      - Hardware VLAN filtering
      - Rx Hardware VLAN stripping
      - Tx Hardware VLAN inserting
      - Link auto-negotiation and link flow control
      - Interrupt moderation
      - Management APIs for CIM Provider, OCSD/OCBB
   New Hardware Supported:
      - Added new devices support for specific OEMs
   Bug Fixes:
      - None
   Known Issues:
      - There is no traffic when vmknic and VF are configured using the same PF port
         Workaround: none
      - Enabling 64 VFs results in TX hang condition
         Workaround: Reduce the number of VFs to 63 or lower

