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Date:      Thu, 25 Sep 2025 18:58:12 -0600
From:      John Nielsen <lists@jnielsen.net>
To:        net@freebsd.org, virtualization@freebsd.org
Cc:        np@freebsd.org
Subject:   Chelsio (cxgbe) VF on FreeBSD guest under KVM requires -rxcsum
Message-ID:  <5D2A2499-4B43-4FE6-AA5A-AD334BC4E872@jnielsen.net>

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Hi-

Not sure if this is a known issue or even an issue on the FreeBSD side =
but decided to ask here first. I=E2=80=99m happy to put in a bug report =
if appropriate.

I have a hypervisor machine running Arch Linux with KVM, Qemu and =
libvirtd. The machine has a Chelsio T520-CR adapter. I recently began =
passing through virtual functions of the NIC to several of the guests I =
run on the hypervisor. One of the guests runs Windows 11, and the change =
was seamless. Two of the guests are running FreeBSD (14.3 or so). On =
each of them the VFs were readily identified and configured (using DHCP =
in one case), and ping and ARP appeared to work fine. However, TCP and =
UDP traffic to the guests never received a response. After some =
head-scratching and troubleshooting I discovered that running =
=E2=80=9Cifconfig cxlv0 -rxcsum=E2=80=9D immediately allowed traffic to =
flow as expected.

As workarounds go that isn=E2=80=99t terrible, but I was surprised that =
the FreeBSD guests required this adjustment while the Windows one did =
not.

As a point of reference I have another hypervisor machine that runs =
FreeBSD 14-STABLE. It also has a Chelsio T520-CR adapter. FreeBSD guests =
on that machine do not require =E2=80=9C-rxcsum=E2=80=9D in order to use =
the Chelsio virtual functions.

Let me know if anyone can shed some light on this. I=E2=80=99m happy to =
provide additional details or run further tests if needed. Thank you!

-John




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