Create SR-IOV VFs on OpenShift with SriovNetworkNodePolicy

💡 Quick Answer: Define a SriovNetworkNodePolicy with the target PFs and numVfs, apply it in openshift-sriov-network-operator, and verify VF resources appear in node allocatable.

OpenShift creates and reconciles VFs through SriovNetworkNodePolicy. Avoid manual VF creation for production clusters.

Example Node Policy

apiVersion: sriovnetwork.openshift.io/v1
kind: SriovNetworkNodePolicy
metadata:
  name: cx7-policy
  namespace: openshift-sriov-network-operator
spec:
  resourceName: mellanoxnics
  nodeSelector:
    kubernetes.io/hostname: "worker-a"
  priority: 90
  numVfs: 16
  mtu: 1500
  deviceType: netdevice
  isRdma: true
  nicSelector:
    rootDevices:
      - "0000:b5:00.0"
      - "0000:db:00.0"
    vendor: "15b3"
    deviceID: "1021"

Apply:

oc apply -f sriov-node-policy.yaml

Verify Reconciliation

oc -n openshift-sriov-network-operator get sriovnetworknodestate
oc -n openshift-sriov-network-operator get sriovnetworknodestate worker-a -o yaml

Verify Resources Exposed to Scheduler

oc get node worker-a -o json | jq '.status.allocatable'

Expect an extended resource key like:

• openshift.io/mellanoxnics

Notes

• Use worker nodes only, not control-plane nodes.
• Keep PFs dedicated for SR-IOV workloads.
• Prefer explicit rootDevices or pfNames to avoid selecting unintended NICs.