CHR supported hardware interface list?

RouterOS Virtualization
1

I’m planning to build a VM server then put CHR on it among other things.

\

  1. Would it be better to have hardware interfaces as PCIE passthrough, or bridged via virtio?

  2. If it’s better to have PCIe passthrough, is there a list somewhere of supported Ethernet/SFP+ cards?

2

PCI Passthru is a way faster solution for VM networking.
With bridging - every packet needs at least 2 CPU cycle (one in host, one in VM),
using passthru the NIC is directly handled by VM

There is a middle way in between: SR-IOV and virtual functions.
with this, the NIC internally “splitted” to sub-interfaces and that sub-interface can be passed to VM


Well, look for the RouterOS ethernet compatibility list, OR mount a VM’s image in linux, and check the list of kernel modules listed in /lib/modules directory…

3

Bumping this a bit. Is there something somewhere documenting supported NICs by RouterOS/CHR? We want to see what actually is supported in passthru mode and what type of NIC offloading CHR actually performs.

4

Unfortunately I haven’t found any such document.

As a small data point, Mellanox ConnectX-3 Dual Port (QSFP+ 40Gbps) and Intel X520 Dual Port (SFP+ 10Gbps) work just fine with CHR. They are connected via PCI passthru in Proxmox.

5

This is good to know. I’m interested in 100G NIC support to be honest. It may be pushing it tho.