Jumbo Ethernet Frames

Discussion in 'General Questions' started by emattheis, Apr 2, 2010.

  1. emattheis

    emattheis Bit poster

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    2
    I'm looking for a Mac-based virtualization product that can support jumbo (MTU 9000) ethernet frames. This is a requirement for a Windows-based networked multimedia application I want to run on my Mac. Can anyone confirm that Parallels Desktop can support this?
     
  2. Elric

    Elric Parallels Team

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    1,718
    The situation with JumboFrames in the current build is as follows:

    MTU size at Windows-side is limited to 1514. But if host does jumbo-frames, the incoming from network packet is splitted to several IP-fragments and delivered to guest. So, at the Windows side jumbo frames are not possible, but guest is able to live in the network that does them
     
  3. emattheis

    emattheis Bit poster

    Messages:
    2
    Thanks for the prompt reply! Unfortunately, in my application the guest side must have jumbo frame support or it does not work. I'm in the middle of installing XP on VirtualBox as they claim to support jumbo frames (http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch06.html), but I'd much prefer the performance and compatibility of Parallels. Are there plans to support this feature in the future?
     
  4. Elric

    Elric Parallels Team

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    1,718
    Yes, we have such plans (and I hope finally they will be supported), though I may not provide estimations.
     
  5. RamonS

    RamonS Junior Member

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    As this was the top result in Google I wanted to say that yes, jumbo frames are supported in the VM guest.

    MTU: 4088, 9014 and 16128.

    Only problem is that my OS X host is set to MTU 9000 and my NAS too.

    I can't seem to limit the MTU to 9000.

    On OSX host I get a max ping packet size of 8164 bytes but I read that is a OS X ping limitation.
    In my Windows 10 guest a max ping packet size of 8972 bytes which is I think correct based on MTU 9000.
     
  6. Elric

    Elric Parallels Team

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    1,718
    > As this was the top result in Google I wanted to say that yes, jumbo frames are supported in the VM guest.

    Yes, providing that you are using e1000 for Windows or virtio for Linux (it is a default configuration) and jumbo frames are enabled on Mac Host, it is enough to enable them in guest. Jumbo frames are supported since Parallels Desktop 9

    Default MTU is 9000. It is possible to configure Parallels for nonstandard size, but it looks like you don't need this.
     
    RamonS likes this.
  7. RamonS

    RamonS Junior Member

    Messages:
    12
    Elric,
    I'm not sure what you mean with default MTU is 9000. That is my OS X MTU size but I cannot find such an option in Parallels Desktop 10.

    I do have these options in my Windows 10 guest:
    [​IMG]


    I just want to make sure that my current selection of 9014 will not cause issues with the size on both my OSX and NAS which are configured as MTU 9000. I want to be sure of that because I used iSCSI in my VM guest.
     
  8. Elric

    Elric Parallels Team

    Messages:
    1,718
    >I just want to make sure that my current selection of 9014 will not cause issues with the size on both my OSX and NAS which are configured as MTU 9000.

    Parallels Desktop is designed to support this.
     

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