VMXNET(9)

📦 version 13.0.10, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

🎀 VMXNET(9) 🎀 vmxnet, the Open VM Tools kernel module

✨ NAME ✨

okay so the name is vmxnet, and it's a vmware kernel module 💖 bestie, it's literally the driver for VMware's fast networking device 🔥

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

modprobe vmxnet

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

okay bestie, listen 🫶 this is a Linux kernel device driver module that drives VMware's fast networking device ✨ since it's backed by real (virtual) hardware, it should get auto-loaded by hotplug or udev whenever it's needed 🧚 no cap, you don't have to babysit it.

for the best performance, it's recommended to enable TSO on every interface driven by vmxnet using ethtool 😭 that's the glow-up move 💜

the shell code to do this might look like this 🌸

if which ethtool >/dev/null 2>&1; then
   for ethif in `ifconfig -a | grep ^eth | cut -d' ' -f1`; do
      ethtool -K $ethif tso on >/dev/null 2>&1
   done fi

lowkey iconic: the VMware backend is allowed to present the fast networking device as an AMD vlance device instead of the actual vmxnet device 🙈 so if you see vlance, it's not a glitch, it's just the backend being extra 💀

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

okay here's your reading list, bestie 📚🫶

🔗 HOMEPAGE 🔗

want the tea? more info about vmxnet and the Open VM Tools lives at <http://open-vm-tools.sourceforge.net/> 🍵✨

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Open VM Tools were written by VMware, Inc. <http://www.vmware.com/> 💜

this manual page was put together from homepage materials by Daniel Baumann <mail@daniel-baumann.ch>, for the Debian project (but anyone else is welcome to use it too) 🫶

bestie, that's the whole page 💖 Open VM Tools man page, version 2010.03.20-243334, dated 2010-04-08 🎀 slay, and I'm obsessed with you for reading it 😭🌸

📦 where this page comes from