Configure Passthrough Devices on a Host and Virtual Machine

Configure Passthrough Devices on a Host

Let’s first configure passthrough networking devices on a host.

Procedure

1. Select a host from the inventory panel of the vSphere Client.

2. On the Configuration tab, click Advanced Settings.

The Passthrough Configuration page appears, listing all available passthrough devices. A green icon indicates that a device is enabled and active. An orange icon indicates that the state of the device has changed and the host must be rebooted before the device can be used.

4. Click Edit.

5. Select the devices to be used for passthrough and click OK.

 

As seen below device has orange icon, it means in order to use this device we will need to reboot ESXi host

After device is enabled and host is reboot, Icon turns green as shown below

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Configure a PCI Device on a Virtual Machine

Now let’s configure a passthrough PCI device on a virtual machine.

Procedure

1. Select a virtual machine from the inventory panel of the vSphere Client.

2. From the Inventory menu, select Virtual Machine > Edit Settings.

3. On the Hardware tab, click Add.

4. Select PCI Device and click Next.

5. Select the passthrough device to use, and click Next.

 

6. Click Finish.

Adding a DirectPath device to a virtual machine sets memory reservation to the memory size of the virtual machine.