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---
title: Single Root IO Virtualization in Proxmox (for NICs)
description: A hands-on exploration of Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) for NICs in Proxmox Virtual Environment (PVE). Covers prerequisites including IOMMU and PCIe...
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og:description: A hands-on exploration of Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) for NICs in Proxmox Virtual Environment (PVE). Covers prerequisites including IOMMU and PCIe...
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# Single Root IO Virtualization in Proxmox (for NICs)

**[apalrd's adventures](https://daily.dev/sources/apalrd)** · 2 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments

## Summary

A hands-on exploration of Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) for NICs in Proxmox Virtual Environment (PVE). Covers prerequisites including IOMMU and PCIe ACS enablement, how to enable SR-IOV via sysctl (non-persistent), LXC container configuration for SR-IOV passthrough, and Mellanox/Nvidia card firmware configuration using MSTFLINT. The author benchmarks IO performance improvements for VMs but cautions that results may be system-specific.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://www.apalrd.net/posts/2024/pve_sriov>

## Questions this post answers

### How do I enable SR-IOV for a NIC in Proxmox VE?

SR-IOV for NICs in Proxmox requires: a card that supports SR-IOV, IOMMU and PCIe ACS enabled in BIOS/UEFI, IOMMU enabled in the kernel (intel_iommu=on or amd_iommu=on), and optionally firmware configuration for Mellanox cards. Once prerequisites are met, SR-IOV is activated by writing to a sysctl corresponding to the network device. Note this setting is not persistent across reboots.

_Homelab engineers configuring SR-IOV passthrough in Proxmox share setups and findings on daily.dev._

### How do I configure a Mellanox NIC firmware to enable SR-IOV in Proxmox?

Mellanox (now Nvidia) cards may require firmware-level SR-IOV configuration using the MSTFLINT tool, which also lets you set the number of Virtual Functions (VFs). This configuration is persistent to the card itself, so a used card may already have SR-IOV enabled. The change survives reboots and does not need to be reapplied at the OS level.

_Developers working with Mellanox NICs in virtualized environments track tips like these on daily.dev._

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- [I ditched VMs for Linux containers, and my home server finally has room to breathe](https://daily.dev/posts/i-ditched-vms-for-linux-containers-and-my-home-server-finally-has-room-to-breathe-v6uh40yts) · XDA Developers · 2 upvotes · 0 comments
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---

Tags: [#infrastructure](https://daily.dev/tags/infrastructure), [#proxmox](https://daily.dev/tags/proxmox)

[View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/single-root-io-virtualization-in-proxmox-for-nics--qa17i4g6g)

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