The Enterprise datapath on X4 series AMD Solarflare network adapters supports 2048 transmit queues, 2048 receive queues, 2048 event queues and 2048 timer resources per network port. X2 series and SFN8000 series AMD Solarflare network adapters support 1024 of each of these resources per network port. A VNIC (virtual network interface) consists of one unique instance of each of these resources, which provides a VNIC client such as the Onload stack an isolated and safe mechanism of sending and receiving network traffic. Received packets are steered to the correct VNIC by means of IP/MAC filter tables on the network adapter and/or Receive Side Scaling (RSS). An Onload stack allocates one VNIC per AMD Solarflare network port so it has a dedicated send and receive channel from user mode.
Following a reset of the AMD Solarflare network adapter driver, all virtual interface resources including Onload stacks and sockets will be re-instated. The reset operation will be transparent to the application, but traffic will be lost during the reset.