Anyone have any ideas to get around the 10 Ethernet adapter limit in windows guests?

thanks

It's hardcoded as far as I know. You can install the Pro/1000 drivers / software package and then create virtual NICs as shown in the image. Would that suffice?

http://www.intel.com/support/network/sb/CS-006120.htm

Is there a way to force PCI Passthrough? is it a license issue?

I need to be able to map the virtual int's to physical int's. I will be running 12 routers in 12 separate vlans connecting into 12 separate physical switch ports. Do these virtual int's correlate to physical ints or they are just logical interfaces on the box?

regarding the passthrough... looks like I need to enable some goodies in my mobo bios, specifically VT-x and/or VT-D.

Some bathroom reading on it: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/Te ... =c02032548 | http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2 ... figuration | http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/micros ... Id=1010789

I have a MSI MS-7673 mobo, which appears to support this. When I get home I will poke around in my BIOS and find the settings required, flip the switch and report back.

For an Intel board your looking for VT-d or Directed I/O. VT-x is for 64 bit virtualization and doesn't impact passthrough.

If I am doing PCI Passthrough, do I need Windows drivers for the card (assuming I am using a Windows guest)?

Thanks for all your help Dave!

Yes - the guest OS would require the proper driver, but ESXi would not. So assuming you have a good implementation of VT-d (and it varies from board to board) you'll pass through the device and the guest OS will communicate directly with the device.

of course, the drivers i just compiled for esxi dont exist in windows FML!