DirectPath I/O option not available on UI

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

The option of DirectPath I/O on the network adapter on the VMs running on ESXI 8.0 is not available. While the same is available as an option in ESXi 7.0.x in UI.

For eg: You will notice this change if you upgrade the ESXi host from 7.0 to 8.0 version.

ESXi host version 7.0.x

 ESXi host version 8.0.x

Environment

vSphere 7.0.x
vSphere 8.0.x

Cause

• The support for DirectPath I/O enabled has been deprecated. i.e uptCompatibilityEnabled property is no longer supported.
• Earlier if DirectPath I/O was enabled(checked), its corresponding property uptCompatibilityEnabled was set to True in VM Config Info.
• Whereas when DirectPath I/O was disabled(un-checked), its corresponding property uptCompatibilityEnabled was set to False in VM Config Info.
• For the setting "uptCompatibilityEnabled" - The corresponding attribute in vmx file has been replaced by uptv2.

Resolution

• Starting with vSphere 8.0, you can enable the Uniform Passthrough (UPT) compatibility, or UPTv2 is only available on the vmxnet3 adapter.
• Clients can set this property to enabled or disabled if the Ethernet virtual device. It requires the VM hardware version to be compatible with the ESXi version that has enabled smartnic feature.
• The Virtual Machine guest operating system should be running a VMXNET 3 driver capable of supporting UPTv2.
• UPTv2 delivers passthrough to the VMs by leveraging VMXNET3 drivers rather than relying on vendor-specific drivers, and most importantly, it still makes the vSphere features available, such as HA and DRS, compared to SR-IOV, where features are not available.
  Reference on UPTv2:
  Change the Virtual Machine Network Adapter Configuration

Prerequisites for enabling UPTv2:

• To apply the UPTv2 option, ESXi hosts need to have smartnic installed and configured.
• Ensure the NIC adapter is running on the latest/upgraded FW version.
• In addition, NSX will need to be configured and installed.
• If NSX is not present, then UPTv2 is not available to use.

Additional Information

Distributed Services Engine (DSE) UPTv2 VMXNET3 driver requirements
Change the Virtual Machine Network Adapter Configuration