Cannot power on the VM with error "No SR-IOV virtual function (VF) is available for given physical function (PF)"

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi
• VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0
• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0

Issue/Introduction

• Virtual machines configured with SR-IOV virtual NICs are unable to power on.
  
  
• After a power-on failure, you will see an error similar to the following under the tasks section:

• The Physical Function (PF) ID listed for the SR-IOV-mapped vmnic differs from the PF ID shown in the error for the failed task,

Failed to power on virtual machine example_vm, pciPassthru:14: No SR-IOV virtual function (VF) is available for given physical function (PF) (0000:04:00.1). Check here for more details

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

Cause

• The VM was newly deployed, but the VMX file retained the incorrect Physical Function (PF) value from its previous configuration, such as 0000:04:00.1, instead of the correct value 0000:X8:00.1

• Current Physical Function (PF) value can be checked from the vmx file of the VM,

• The PF value in the vmx file and the error message would be the same which doesn't match the correct Physical Function (PF) listed for the SR-IOV-mapped vmnic adapters
• Correct Physical Function (PF) value can be obtained by executing the following command

esxcli network sriovnic vf list -n vmnic*

Note: The PF ID provided above is for illustrative purposes only and may not reflect the actual ID for every event

Resolution

Need to Delete and recreate the SR-IOV vNIC to update the PF ID in the Virtual Machine.

Steps to remove the SR-IOV network adapter:

1. Power off the Virtual Machine
2. Right click the VM, select edit settings
3. Remove the SR-IOV network adapter 
4. Click OK to save the configuration

Steps to add the SR-IOV network adapter:

1. Right click the Virtual Machine, select Edit Settings.
2. Select the Virtual Hardware tab in the dialog box displaying the settings.
3. From the Add new device drop-down menu, select Network Adapter.
4. The New Network section is added to the list in the Virtual Hardware tab.
5. Expand the New Network section and connect the virtual machine to a port group.
6. From the Adapter type drop-down menu, select SR-IOV passthrough.
7. From the Physical function drop-down menu, select the physical adapter to back the passthrough virtual machine adapter.
   
   
8. Power on the Virtual Machine

Additional Information

Reference Document to Assign a Virtual Function as SR-IOV Passthrough Adapter to a Virtual Machine:

• https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vsphere.networking.doc/GUID-898A3D66-9415-4854-8413-B40F2CB6FF8D.html