LTM 11.2.0 VE now requires VMXNET3 network adapter breaks VirtualBox

qe,

This is exactly what I want to hear "yes I need almost zero bandwith to make my an iRules testbed" as such I tried to boot with VirtualBox 4.1.18r78361 running "BIG-IP 11.2.0 Build 2466.0".

This might work for Linux KVM but it still doesn't seem to work for VirtualBox on Windows 7 - with any of the availabel interfaces.

Maybe I need to configure something in the guest e.g. Linux VM side - I did read (http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch06.htmlnichardware) that "VirtualBox provides support for the industry-standard "virtio" networking drivers, which are part of the open-source KVM project" and "Linux kernels version 2.6.25 or later can be configured to provide virtio support;"

So here is what I did - big failure

1) all virtio NICs (from VirtualBox e.g. "Paravirtualized network adapter (virtio-net)") - the first one, eth0, will indeed mgmt. I configured a mgmt and three dataplane NICs: 1 (mgmt) +3 (dataplane) = 4 virtio nics on VirtualBox (not on KVM).

2) Note when I do a "cat /PLATFORM" - it gives same result you indicated

platform=Z100

family=0xC0000000

host=Z100

systype=0x71

---

Result the license/key files didn't seem to take. Also the the mgmt interface was on a "Paravirtualized network adapter (virtio-net)" instead of a "AMD PCNet PCI II (Am79C970A)" I could no longer ping in either direction on eth0 the mgmt interface.

In fact on a poweroff or a reboot the VM will hang on "Shutting down interface eth0", I have to hard power off the virtual machine.

I imagine that if the VirtualBox "Paravirtualized network adapter (virtio-net)" network adaptor will not work on the managment port - then all bets are off for it to work on "Int" and "Ext" vlans. So there is a difference between the KVM virtio nics and the VirtualBox "Paravirtualized network adapter (virtio-net)" - it just doesn't work.

---

Note I had already tried (many combinations) I think I always need a Am79C970A or I never get management:

1 mgmt: "AMD PCNet PCI II (Am79C970A)"

2 vlan: "Paravirtualized network adapter (virtio-net)"

3 vlan: "Paravirtualized network adapter (virtio-net)"

and it doesn't work. When I read your replay I was surprised that setting "all" to virtio might solve my issue but all it did was completely turn off my mgmt access via https and ssh.

- Jon