Failed to Start virtio-net-controller.service

The problem can be verified using the following commands:

            

            
# virtnet list
ERR: Can't connect to virtnet controller: [Errno 111] Connection refused
     Check 'systemctl status virtio-net-controller'
     Or controller is not ready to accept commands
        

            

            
# systemctl status virtio-net-controller
● virtio-net-controller.service - Nvidia VirtIO Net Controller Daemon
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/virtio-net-controller.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: inactive (dead) since Fri 2023-10-27 17:46:59 CDT; 2min 26s ago
     Docs: file:/opt/mellanox/mlnx_virtnet/README.md
  Process: 29652 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/virtio_net_manager (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 29652 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
        

The problem may happen due to the following reasons.

Virtio-net Not Enabled

1. Check if mlxconfig has VIRTIO_NET_EMULATION_ENABLE enabled:

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   # mlxconfig -d 03:00.0 -e q | grep -i VIRTIO_NET_EMULATION_ENABLE
   *        VIRTIO_NET_EMULATION_ENABLE                 False(0)        True(1)         True(1)
           

   Both 2 and 3 columns should appear as true.

2. If they are not, perform the following from the BlueField Arm side:

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   # mlxconfig -d 03:00.0 s VIRTIO_NET_EMULATION_ENABLE=1
           

3. Perform a BlueField system-level reset as documented in the BlueField software documentation.

Not Enough SFs Reserved

This can happen when more VIRTIO_NET_EMULATION_NUM_PF are reserved than PF_TOTAL_SF, as each virtio-net PF/VF requires a corresponding SF created:

            

            
# mlxconfig -d 03:00.0 -e q | grep -iE 'PF_TOTAL_SF|VIRTIO_NET_EMULATION_NUM_PF'
*        VIRTIO_NET_EMULATION_NUM_PF                 0               4               4
*        PF_TOTAL_SF                                 0               8               8