SR-IOV: Cannot configure Virtual Functions (VFs) on ESXi host physical adapters

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• Changing the virtual functions on ESXi host's vmnicX fails with following error.
  
  
  • Operation failed! An error occurred during host configuration: Unable to complete Sysinfo operation. Please see the VMkernel log file for more details .:Failure: VSI node(368:VSI_NODE_net_sriov_vfs).

• On ESXi, /var/run/log/vmkernel.log reports following error.

  2025-12-08T05:04:22.269Z In(182) vmkernel: cpu11:2097645)PCI: 995: Failed to allocate and program VF BARs on 0000:16:00.1
  2025-12-08T05:04:22.269Z Wa(180) vmkwarning: cpu11:2097645)WARNING: PCI: 1615: Enable VFs failed for device @0000:16:00.1, Please make sure the system has proper BIOS installed and enabled for SRIOV.
  2025-12-08T05:04:22.269Z Wa(180) vmkwarning: cpu11:2097645)WARNING: bnxtnet: bnxtnet_sriov_enable:1580: [0000:16:00.1 : 0x######] Failed to enable 0 VFs (Failure)
  

Environment

VMware ESXi

Cause

This issue caused due to unsupported/outdated NIC driver/firmware.

Resolution

Upgrade the firmware and NIC driver to a compatible/latest version.

Additional Information

• To know the other pre-requisites about SR-IOV, refer to the documentation SR-IOV Support
  
  
• To know about the process to verify and download the driver, refer to the KB Download and install async drivers in VMware ESXi