| 1 | <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
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| 2 | <!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">
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| 3 | <topic xml:lang="en-us" id="nichardware">
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| 4 | <title>Virtual Networking Hardware</title>
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| 5 |
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| 6 | <body>
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| 7 | <p>For each card, you can individually select what kind of <i>hardware</i> will be presented to the virtual machine.
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| 8 | <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> can virtualize the following types of networking hardware: </p>
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| 9 | <ul>
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| 10 | <li>
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| 11 | <p>AMD PCNet PCI II (Am79C970A) Not available on Arm guests.</p>
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| 12 | </li>
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| 13 | <li>
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| 14 | <p>AMD PCNet FAST III (Am79C973), the default setting on x86 guests. Not available on Arm guests.</p>
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| 15 | </li>
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| 16 | <li>
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| 17 | <p>Intel PRO/1000 MT Desktop (82540EM) </p>
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| 18 | </li>
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| 19 | <li>
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| 20 | <p>Intel PRO/1000 T Server (82543GC) </p>
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| 21 | </li>
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| 22 | <li>
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| 23 | <p>Intel PRO/1000 MT Server (82545EM) </p>
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| 24 | </li>
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| 25 | <li>
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| 26 | <p>Paravirtualized network adapter (virtio-net) </p>
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| 27 | </li>
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| 28 | </ul>
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| 29 | <p>The PCNet FAST III is the default because it is supported by nearly all operating systems, as well as by the GNU
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| 30 | GRUB boot manager. As an exception, the Intel PRO/1000 family adapters are chosen for some guest operating system
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| 31 | types that no longer ship with drivers for the PCNet card, such as Windows Vista. </p>
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| 32 | <p>The Intel PRO/1000 MT Desktop type works with Windows Vista and later versions. The T Server variant of the Intel
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| 33 | PRO/1000 card is recognized by Windows XP guests without additional driver installation. The MT Server variant
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| 34 | facilitates OVF imports from other platforms. </p>
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| 35 | <p>The Paravirtualized network adapter (virtio-net) is special. If you select this adapter, then <ph
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| 36 | conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> does <i>not</i> virtualize common networking hardware that is
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| 37 | supported by common guest operating systems. Instead, <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>
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| 38 | expects a special software interface for virtualized environments to be provided by the guest, thus avoiding the
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| 39 | complexity of emulating networking hardware and improving network performance. <ph
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| 40 | conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> provides support for the industry-standard <i>virtio</i>
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| 41 | networking drivers, which are part of the open source KVM project. </p>
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| 42 | <p>The virtio networking drivers are available for the following guest operating systems: </p>
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| 43 | <ul>
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| 44 | <li>
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| 45 | <p>Linux kernels version 2.6.25 or later can be configured to provide virtio support. Some distributions have
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| 46 | also back-ported virtio to older kernels. </p>
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| 47 | </li>
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| 48 | <li>
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| 49 | <p>For Windows 2000, XP, and Vista, virtio drivers can be downloaded and installed from the KVM project web
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| 50 | page: </p>
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| 51 | <p><ph>http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/WindowsGuestDrivers</ph>.
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| 52 | </p>
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| 53 | </li>
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| 54 | </ul>
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| 55 | <p><ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> also has limited support for <i>jumbo frames</i>. These are
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| 56 | networking packets with more than 1500 bytes of data, provided that you use the Intel card virtualization and
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| 57 | bridged networking. Jumbo frames are not supported with the AMD networking devices. In those cases, jumbo packets
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| 58 | will silently be dropped for both the transmit and the receive direction. Guest operating systems trying to use
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| 59 | this feature will observe this as a packet loss, which may lead to unexpected application behavior in the guest.
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| 60 | This does not cause problems with guest operating systems in their default configuration, as jumbo frames need to
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| 61 | be explicitly enabled. </p>
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| 62 | </body>
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| 63 |
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| 64 | </topic>
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