[CFT] VMware vmxnet3 ethernet driver

[Bryan Venteicher]

----- Original Message -----
> I have ~100 FreeBSD 8/9 VMs in my vSphere 5.1 environment, all using the
> VMware tools package from VMware. Everything has been running great for
> years.
> (we skipped vSphere 5.0). Why should I use this vmxnet driver instead of the
> VMware tools driver or the emulated e1000?
> 

They are out of tree and subject to rotting. I had to use the patches
at [1] to even get them to compile on 9.1 and -current. I don't think
VMware puts much engineering resources behind it; there was a compiler
warning of a silly bug like:
    if (foo) ;
        do_something();

vmxnet3 has modern features LRO, IPv6 checksum offloading, etc that
the emulated e1000 lacks. In my test setup, e1000 tops out at 30MB/sec
but vmxnet3 goes to 50MB/sec. I'd like to hear other's experiences.

[1] - http://ogris.de/vmware/

> --
> Joel
>