ESXi 6.0: Change from E1000 to VMXNET 3?

riahc3

Hello

I wanted to change my LAN and WAN adapter from E1000 to VMXNET 3 to squeeze some extra performance out.

I thought simply removing the adapters and adding them as VMXNET 3 is enough. pfSense booted up, detected the change and when I was going to configure it, it doesnt detect the link up/down when configuring for example the WAN interface.

How should I do this?

KOM

I would do a fresh install:

Make an XML backup of your settings via WebGUI
Blow away your E1000s and add however many VMXNET3 NICs you need
Reinstall pfSense with all defaults
Edit your config XML and do a find/replace on all instances of em0 to vmx0, em1 to vmx1, em2 to vmx2 etc.
Restore your pfSense config via WebGUI
Reboot pfSense

This may not be an optimal solution if you have lots of packages installed and configured.

riahc3

@KOM:

I would do a fresh install:

Make an XML backup of your settings via WebGUI
Blow away your E1000s and add however many VMXNET3 NICs you need
Reinstall pfSense with all defaults
Edit your config XML and do a find/replace on all instances of em0 to vmx0, em1 to vmx1, em2 to vmx2 etc.
Restore your pfSense config via WebGUI
Reboot pfSense

This may not be an optimal solution if you have lots of packages installed and configured.

So basically if I edit the XML config file, I should be able to do it?

The thing is that pfSense SEES vmx0 and etc but it doesnt do anything when I plug in/plug out ethernet.

cmb

The link status detection not likely to work in a VM, just manually assign the NICs.

riahc3

@cmb:

The link status detection not likely to work in a VM, just manually assign the NICs.

Could have sworn it worked with E1000…....

Well, I imagine from a logic level that the first NIC that appears is the one I have as "Network Adapter 1" in my ESXi and the second NIC that appears is the one I have as "Network Adapter 2" right?

The reason I was looking for link detection is to make sure I dont confuse the interfaces.

johnpoz

The easy way not to confuse the interfaces is just look at the mac for the nic in esxi.. I just set them so I know what they are ;)

[2.2.1-RELEASE][root@pfSense.local.lan]/root: ifconfig | grep ether
ether 00:50:56:00:00:01
ether 00:50:56:00:00:02
ether 00:50:56:00:00:03
ether 00:50:56:00:00:04

So when I go to assign interfaces in pfsense its very clear what is what.. Now I guess if someone had the same idea and was running vmware and set that same 0001 address on their wan mac I might have some problems getting an IP from my isp.. But hasn't happened so far.. And if does just change it, etc.

riahc3

@johnpoz:

The easy way not to confuse the interfaces is just look at the mac for the nic in esxi.. I just set them so I know what they are ;)

[2.2.1-RELEASE][root@pfSense.local.lan]/root: ifconfig | grep ether
ether 00:50:56:00:00:01
ether 00:50:56:00:00:02
ether 00:50:56:00:00:03
ether 00:50:56:00:00:04

So when I go to assign interfaces in pfsense its very clear what is what.. Now I guess if someone had the same idea and was running vmware and set that same 0001 address on their wan mac I might have some problems getting an IP from my isp.. But hasn't happened so far.. And if does just change it, etc.

You just gave me a easy solution to a problem I was making difficult.

Thanks as always :)