A virtual function (VF) on a kernel zone is created when an anet belonging to a kernel zone is configured with the zonecfg property iov set to on or auto. The VF is assigned by the host system to the kernel zone.
Each VF assigned to a kernel zone has an associated shadow VNIC in the host. You can use shadow VNICs to show network statistics.
The following example shows output of the shadow VNIC kzone1/net0 on the system global:
global$ dladm show-link LINK CLASS MTU STATE OVER net1 phys 1500 unknown -- net0 phys 1500 up -- net2 phys 1500 up -- kzone1/net0 vnic 1500 unknown net1 global$ dlstat show-link kzone1/net0 LINK IPKTS RBYTES OPKTS OBYTES kzone1/net0 0 0 3 126
Because a shadow VNIC is unable to transfer data, you cannot use a shadow VNIC for DLMP or trunk aggregations. In addition, you cannot configure link properties on a shadow VNIC.
The zonecfg anet property bwshare enables a shadow VNIC to be set on a link only if the underlying physical link is supported. See the dladm(1M) and zonecfg(1M) man pages for additional information.
For additional information on VNICs and network configuration, consult Managing Network Virtualization and Network Resources in Oracle Solaris 11.3.