Why don't we find the driver version on VMWare/Intel sites as mentioned in our document https://docs.paloaltonetworks.com/compatibility-matrix/vm-series-firewalls/sr-iov-and-dpdk-drivers.html?
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Created On 06/03/20 19:48 PM - Last Modified 01/29/21 19:09 PM
Question
Why don't we find the driver version on VMWare/Intel sites as mentioned in our document https://docs.paloaltonetworks.com/compatibility-matrix/vm-series-firewalls/sr-iov-and-dpdk-drivers.html ?
Environment
Virtual Firewall on any Hypervisor
Answer
This is regarding driver versions that we mention in document https://docs.paloaltonetworks.com/compatibility-matrix/vm-series-firewalls/sr-iov-and-dpdk-drivers.html
Most common issue: We do not find the driver version on VMWare/Intel sites as mentioned in our documents.
a) When we speak of drivers we should consider 2 different things here:
1. The driver in PAN OS (which we refer to as VM Drivers - the PAN OS driver talks
to the host's driver)
2. The driver that the underlying host uses.
b) The driver versions mentioned in document are the PAN OS drivers (NOT the
underlying host drivers).
c) The underlying host's driver must be equal or higher than the PAN OS driver.
e.x: i40e driver version mentioned in our document is 1.3.49. However, vmware has the driver version 2.0.7 listed. This should work as driver version 2.0.7 > 1.3.49 (Underlying host driver version >= PAN OS driver version).
Note: Change in base version (Driver version 1.x to 2.x) does not matter.
d) Then comes another confusion regarding use of native drivers. Native drivers are a new driver stack introduced by VMWare which bypasses the need of Linux derived driver emulation.
Note: We currently do not have any native drivers qualified.
e.x: i40e v/s i40en Here i40en is a native driver. Native and non-native drivers maintain different versions.
That being said native drivers might work, but we officially do not recommend use of native drivers.
Note: An exception for i40e for 9.1 ---> We do support version 2.0.7.on ESXi (This has been tested)