PVSCSI(4)

📦 version 15.1, in freebsd 14.5, freebsd 15.1, nixpkgs unstable

🎀 PVSCSI 🎀

okay so bestie, we're talking about pvscsi(4) — the VMware Paravirtual SCSI Controller driver. yes it's a mouthful, no you don't have to say it out loud. i've got you 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

so like, if you wanna compile this driver into the kernel, you drop these lines into your kernel configuration file:

device pci
device scbus
device pvscsi

OR — and honestly this is the lowkey easier route — load it as a module at boot time by putting this in loader.conf(5):

pvscsi_load="YES"

and then there's the tunables, which you can set from loader(8) 👇

🌸 Tunables

  • hw.pvscsi.request_ring_pages — controls how many pages get allocated for the device request ring. a non-positive value means the driver picks the number itself based on device capabilities. a non-zero value uses that many pages, up to a maximum of 32. the default is 0. slay, sensible defaults 🫶
  • hw.pvscsi.max_queue_depth — controls the queue size for the adapter. non-positive value? driver decides based on the number of request ring pages. non-zero value? it sets the queue size, up to the max allowed by the number of request ring pages. default is 0.
  • hw.pvscsi.use_msg — set it to a nonzero value and you enable the PVSCSI message queue, which lets you hot-add and hot-remove disks without needing a manual rescan. default is 1. literally iconic 😭
  • hw.pvscsi.use_msi — nonzero value enables MSI interrupts. default is 1.
  • hw.pvscsi.use_msix — nonzero value enables MSI-X interrupts. default is 1. we love options 💖
  • hw.pvscsi.use_req_call_threshold — nonzero value enables the request call threshold functionality. TODO. default is 1. (yes the manpage really just says TODO, i'm not hiding anything from you bestie 💀)

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

the pvscsi driver provides support for the VMware Paravirtual SCSI Controller (PVSCSI) in virtual machines by VMware. that's it, that's the vibe. it makes your virtual SCSI stuff work under VMware, periodt ✨

🎀 SEE ALSO 🎀

go read those if you're feeling curious, iykyk 🌈

⭐ HISTORY ⭐

the pvscsi driver first appeared in FreeBSD 13.0. a whole era 👑

💜 AUTHORS 💜

Vishal Bhakta <vbhakta@vmware.com>.

and that's the whole page, bestie — this one's from Debian, dated December 5, 2018 🍓 thanks for reading, mwah 💋

📦 where this page comes from