iperf3 exits with error "Operation not permitted"

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

ESXi supports the use of the iperf3 utility for network bandwidth testing. 

Users may be guided by Broadcom support to use iperf3 to verify available network bandwidth.

When iperf3 is run on the ESXi host, it may exit with the error "iperf3: error - unable to start listener for connections: Operation not permitted"

Cause

A security policy in ESXi limits the ability of applications to bind to a listening port on a host IP. This setting can be changed.

Resolution

To disable the setting that prevents iperf3 from opening a listening port, run this command on the ESXi shell:

localcli system secpolicy domain set -n appDom -l disabled

To reenable the security setting:

localcli system secpolicy domain set -n appDom -l enforcing