SR-IOV enabled VM's network adaptor goes down

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• The SR-IOV is enabled on vm's network adaptor.
• The ESXi host's vmnics are also SR-IOV enabled.
• Once the service from a third-party tool is enabled for vm, the network adaptor of vm goes down.
• Inside the guest OS logs(vendor specific) , the following entries (sample snippet) were seen when the vm's network adaptor went down:-
  2025-06-30T06:18:58+00:00 daemon #######.localdomain fp-###[####]: err iavf_request_queues(): request queues not supported
2025-06-30T06:18:58+00:00 daemon #######.localdomain fp-###[####]: err iavf_queues_req_reset(): request queues from PF failed
2025-06-30T06:18:58+00:00 daemon #######.localdomain fp-###[####]: err Port0 dev_configure = -1
2025-06-30T06:18:58+00:00 daemon #######.localdomain fp-###[####]: err Failed to configure device: err=-1, port=0
2025-06-30T06:18:58+00:00 daemon #######.localdomain fp-###[####]: err Failed to start port 0, set link down
2025-06-30T06:18:58+00:00 daemon #######.localdomain fp-###[####]: err Failed to start port 0
• Intel icen driver is used by the vm.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server

VMware vSphere ESXi

Cause

The queue size required for SR-IOV enabled interface at vm's guest os level requires certain queue size which is not supported on Intel icen driver.

Resolution

The Intel icen driver do not support the queue size change at guest OS level for vm and will only use the default queue size.