: VM-Series on KVM—Requirements and Prerequisites
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VM-Series on KVM—Requirements and Prerequisites

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VM-Series on KVM—Requirements and Prerequisites

VM-Series on KVM System Requirements
Requirements
Description
Hardware Resources
See VM-Series System Requirements for the minimum hardware requirements for your VM-Series model.
Software Versions
See the supported KVM software versions in the Compatibility Matrix.
SR-IOV Drivers
See PacketMMAP Driver Versions drivers in the Compatibility Matrix.
DPDK Drivers
See DPDK Driver Versions in the Compatibility Matrix.
If you use one of the supported NIC drivers on VM-Series on KVM, DPDK is enabled by default.
Network Interfaces—Network Interface Cards and Software Bridges
The VM-Series on KVM supports a total of 25 interfaces — 1 management interface and a maximum of 24 network interfaces for data traffic.
VM-Series deployed on KVM supports software-based virtual switches such as the Linux bridge or the Open vSwitch bridge, and direct connectivity to PCI passthrough or an SR-IOV capable adapter.
If you plan to establish connectivity using PCI-passthrough or SR-IOV, you cannot configure a vSwitch on the physical port used for SR-IOV or PCI-passthrough. To communicate with the host and other virtual machines on the network, the VM-Series firewall must have exclusive access to the physical port and associated virtual functions (VFs) on that interface.
  • On the Linux bridge and OVS, the e1000 and Virtio drivers are supported; the default driver rtl8139 is not supported.
  • For PCI passthrough/SR-IOV support, the VM-Series firewall has been tested for the following network cards:
    • Intel 82576 based 1G NIC: SR-IOV support on all supported Linux distributions; PCI-passthrough support.
    • Intel 82599 based 10G NIC: SR-IOV support on all supported Linux distributions; PCI-passthrough support.
    • Intel X710 10G NIC: SR-IOV support on all supported Linux distributions; PCI-passthrough support
    • Intel X722 10G NIC: SR-IOV support on all supported Linux distributions; PCI-passthrough support
    • Broadcom 57112 and 578xx based 10G NIC: SR-IOV support on all supported Linux distributions; No PCI-passthrough support.
    • Mellanox ConnectX5 10G/25G/50G/100G NIC: SR-IOV support on all supported Linux distributions.
    • Refer to PacketMMAP Driver Versions in the Compatibility Matrix
      SR-IOV capable interfaces assigned to the VM-Series firewall, must be configured as Layer 3 interfaces or as HA interfaces.

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