SR-IOV VLAN Tagging Fails on ESXi 8.0 for Virtual Machines using Virtual Hardware Version 13 or Lower

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• VM have SR-IOV enabled and are running legacy  Virtual Hardware Version 
• VLAN Tagging Failure: Packet captures (tcpdump) inside the guest OS show incoming broadcast traffic from the physical switch's Native (Untagged) VLAN, ignoring the Port Group VLAN configuration.
• Log lines similar to the below are encountered in /var/log/vmkernel.log
<timestamp> In(182) vmkernel: cpu23:#######)i40en: indrv_PassthruOps:179: 0000:18:##.##: VMK_NETPTOP_VF_SET_DEFAULT_VLAN: Set port VLAN ### on VF9
<timestamp> In(182) vmkernel: cpu23::#######))i40en: i40en_SetVfPortVlan:###: 0000:18:##.##: VF 9 still in reset. Try again

Cause

the VM's virtual motherboard must speak the same PCIe language as the physical host driver.

Resolution

• To use advanced hardware features, the Virtual Machine Hardware Version must be upgraded to a level that supports the specific DirectPath I/O implementation of the host ESXi version.
• For details of upgrading Virtual  Hardware Version  please see   Upgrading a virtual machine to the latest hardware version (multiple versions)

Additional Information

Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere 8.0