Virtual Function (VF) Driver

A function that is associated with a Physical Function. A VF is a lightweight PCIe function that shares one or more physical resources with the Physical Function and with other VFs that are associated with the same PF. A VF driver exhibits the following characteristics:

• Visible in both the root domain and I/O domain

• Can initiate communication with its PF either through the HW mailbox or an OS–provided interface

• Not visible in the root domain until the following conditions are satisfied:

  • The root domain has booted up

  • The PF driver attaches and invokes the configuration of the VF

  • The VFs are enabled by the root domain's Oracle Solaris IOV framework

  • The system firmware allocates resources to the VFs

• Not visible in the I/O Domain until the following conditions are satisfied:

  • VFs are already enabled and are visible in the root domain

  • VFs are assigned to the I/O Domain

  • VFs are probed in the I/O Domain by the Oracle Solaris firmware (OBP)