ESXi PSOD BlueScreen: #PF Exception 14 in world - i40en_UplinkPriv

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

ESXi experiences a PSOD that mentions the Inbox i40en driver in the backtrace stack

Environment

ESXi 7.x

Cause

This is caused by a driver filter stats buffer overflow in the Inbox i40en driver.  

 

Log file - /var/run/log/vmkernel.log

2024-06-21T21:50:40.305Z cpu56:2097460)@BlueScreen: #PF Exception 14 in world 2097460:HELPER_UPLIN IP 0x42002b65ad3b addr 0x8
PTEs:0xc005426027;0xc004f12007;0x0;
2024-06-21T21:50:40.320Z cpu56:2097460)Code start: 0x42002a800000 VMK uptime: 455:21:42:08.477
2024-06-21T21:50:40.346Z cpu56:2097460)0x453949a1be20:[0x42002b65ad3b]i40en_UplinkPrivStatsGet@(i40en)#<None>+0x45f stack: 0x4307b3a7e050
2024-06-21T21:50:40.373Z cpu56:2097460)0x453949a1be80:[0x42002aa8da15]UplinkDeviceGetStatsAsyncCB@vmkernel#nover+0x2fe stack: 0x420000000001
2024-06-21T21:50:40.402Z cpu56:2097460)0x453949a1bf10:[0x42002ab5aa14]UplinkAsyncProcessCallsHelperCB@vmkernel#nover+0x119 stack: 0x125306464fcb9d2
2024-06-21T21:50:40.426Z cpu56:2097460)0x453949a1bf40:[0x42002a8da139]HelperQueueFunc@vmkernel#nover+0x1d2 stack: 0x453949a20b48
2024-06-21T21:50:40.448Z cpu56:2097460)0x453949a1bfe0:[0x42002abb3e29]CpuSched_StartWorld@vmkernel#nover+0x86 stack: 0x0
2024-06-21T21:50:40.469Z cpu56:2097460)0x453949a1c000:[0x42002a8c4c1f]Debug_IsInitialized@vmkernel#nover+0xc stack: 0x0
2024-06-21T21:50:40.484Z cpu56:2097460)base fs=0x0 gs=0x42004e000000 Kgs=0x0
2024-06-16T16:23:32.939Z cpu79:92248104)Attempting to install an image profile bypassing signing and acceptance level verification. This may pose a large security risk.

Resolution

This is resolved in ESXi 8.x.

For 7.x environments, the resolution is to upgrade the Async i40en driver to a minimum of 2.4.1.0