Using Google Virtual NIC (original) (raw)

Google Virtual NIC (gVNIC) is a virtual network interface designed specifically for Compute Engine. gVNIC is an alternative to thevirtIO-based ethernet driver.

As the next generation network interface which succeeds VirtIO, gVNIC replaces VirtIO-Net as the only supported network interface in Compute Engine for all new machine types(Generation 3 and onwards). Newer machine series and networking features require gVNIC instead of VirtIO. Consuming gVNIC as the modern I/O interface with Compute Engine VMs offers the following advantages:

gVNIC is supported and recommended on all machine families, machine types, and generations.

gVNIC is required to achieve the following maximum bandwidth rates:

You must use gVNIC as the network interface forConfidential VMinstances, third generation or later machine series VMs, and VMs that run on theArm CPU platform.

Before you begin

Pricing

To see the latest prices for Tier_1 networking, refer to theVM instance pricing page.

For a list of additional methods that can be used to find pricing information, see Compute Engine pricing.

Operating system support

On Compute Engine, you can choose to use gVNIC on any supported public operating system (OS) images. You canmanually install the gVNIC driver in these cases:

For the supported operating systems, see the Interfaces tab for an operating system. Also check the Networking features tab for networking feature support.

Use on non-supported operating systems

For OS images that support gVNIC but don't include the latest version of the gVNIC driver, you can download the latest driver version from GitHub.

You can manually configure and install the latest version of the gVNIC driver on either Linux or Windows VMs.

After you update the operating system in your VM to use gVNIC,create a custom OS image based on that OS image. You can then use the custom OS image to create additional VMs that use gVNIC on that operating system. For more information about creating VMs using a custom OS image, seeCreate a custom OS image that supports gVNIC on this page.

Use the following procedures to manually configure and install the latest version of the gVNIC driver.

Update to the latest gVNIC driver for Windows

An updated version of the gVNIC driver for Windows offers improved network performance. When installed on a compute instance that uses athird generation or later supported machine series the driver provides the following improvements:

To use the updated version of the gVNIC driver, in a Powershell window, run the googet command to update the gVNIC driver. The command lists all the updates that are available. Enter y when prompted for gVNIC driver.

googet update

After you have installed and configured Windows to use the updated version of the gVNIC driver, you can configure Jumbo frames to achieve optimal throughput. For more information, see Maximum transmission unit.

Overview of using gVNIC with Compute Engine VMs

To create a VM that uses gVNIC, complete the following steps:

  1. Choose a public OS image that supports gVNIC, or create a custom OS image that is tagged to use gVNIC.
  2. Create a VM using the public or custom OS image. During the VM creation, configure the network interface to use gVNIC.
  3. Verify that gVNIC is enabled.

If you encounter any issues, seeTroubleshooting Google Virtual NIC.

Create a custom OS image that supports gVNIC

You can create the OS image using either theGoogle Cloud CLI orREST. For detailed information and best practices for creating custom OS images, seeCreate custom OS images.

gcloud

  1. Select an OS image or image family that supports gVNIC. For more information, seeOperating system details.
  2. Using the OS image or image family selected in the previous step, create a custom OS image and tag this OS image with GVNIC. To create the custom OS image, use thegcloud compute images create command. For example, the following command creates a custom OS image that supports gVNIC and that's based on a specific OS image.
    gcloud compute images create IMAGE_NAME \
    --source-image=SOURCE_IMAGE \
    --source-image-project=SOURCE_IMAGE_PROJECT \
    --guest-os-features=GVNIC
    Replace the following:
    • IMAGE_NAME: the name of the image that you want to create
    • SOURCE_IMAGE: a specific OS image that supports gVNIC—for example:rocky-linux-8-optimized-gcp-v20220719
      If you want to use the latest OS image in animage family, replace the--source-image flag with the --source-image-family flag and set its value to an image family that supports gVNIC. For example:--source-image-family=rocky-linux-8-optimized-gcp.
    • SOURCE_IMAGE_PROJECT: the name of the project that contains the source OS image or image family
      Example
      To create a Rocky Linux 8 Optimized for Google Cloud OS image using the latest OS image from the Compute Engine rocky-linux-8-optimized-gcpimage family, run the following command:
      gcloud compute images create IMAGE_NAME \
      --source-image-family=rocky-linux-8-optimized-gcp \
      --source-image-project=rocky-linux-cloud \
      --guest-os-features=GVNIC
      For more information about when to use image families, seeImage family best practices.

REST

  1. Select an OS image or image family that supports gVNIC For more information, seeOperating system details.
  2. Using the OS image or image family selected in the previous step, create an OS image and tag this OS image with GVNIC. To create the OS image, use theimages.insert method.
    POST https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/global/images
    {
    "name":"IMAGE_NAME",
    "sourceImage":"SOURCE_IMAGE_URI",
    "guestOsFeatures":[
    {
    "type":"GVNIC"
    }
    ]
    }
    Replace the following:
    • PROJECT_ID: the ID of the project in which to create the new image
    • IMAGE_NAME: a name for the custom image
    • SOURCE_IMAGE_URI: the URI for the specific OS image or image family that you want to use
      For example:
      * Specific OS image: "sourceImage": "projects/rocky-linux-cloud/global/images/rocky-linux-8-optimized-gcp-v20220719"
      * Image family: "sourceImage": "projects/rocky-linux-cloud/global/images/family/rocky-linux-8-optimized-gcp"

    When you specify an image family, Compute Engine creates a VM from the most recent, non-deprecated OS image in that family. For more information about when to use image families, seeImage family best practices.

Create a VM with gVNIC support

You can create a VM using one of thesupported public OS images or using a custom OS image you created using the steps inCreate a custom OS image that supports gVNIC.

Optionally, you can enable DPDK on the VM for faster network packet processing, low latency, and consistent performance.

For VMs that support multiple network interfaces (NICs), you can have NICs of different types attached to the VM because interface support is configured per NIC. While this is supported, we don't recommend this setup. For VMs that support multiple NICs, ensure that you specify nic-type=GVNIC for each network interface when creating the VM.

Create a VM using a public OS image

To create a VM using a public OS image that supports gVNIC, follow the instructions atCreating VMs and containers with high-bandwidth configuration.

Create a VM using a custom OS image

If you aren't using a public OS image that supports gVNIC, you must first create a custom OS image that supports gVNIC. You then use that custom OS image to create a VM by using the Google Cloud console, Google Cloud CLI, orREST.

Console

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Create an instance page.
    Go to Create an instance
  2. Enter the Name of your VM instance.
  3. Select the Zone to create your VM in.
  4. In the Boot disk section, click Change.
  5. In the Boot disk panel, on the Custom images tab, complete the following:
    1. Choose the Source project that contains the OS image that you created previously.
    2. Select the image from the Image drop-down.
    3. Click Select.
  6. To set gVNIC as the network interface, expand theAdvanced options section, and then do the following:
    1. Expand the Networking section.
    2. For Network interface card, select gVNIC.
  7. Make additional VM customizations as needed.
  8. Click Create to create the VM instance.

gcloud

  1. Create the VM by using thegcloud compute instances create command. For the boot disk, specify the custom OS image that you created earlier. For the network interface, set the value of the nic-type flag toGVNIC.
    gcloud compute instances create VM_NAME \
    --zone=ZONE \
    --machine-type=MACHINE_TYPE \
    --image=IMAGE_NAME \
    --image-project=YOUR_IMAGE_PROJECT \
    --network-interface=nic-type=GVNIC
    Replace the following:
    • VM_NAME: the name of the new VM.
    • ZONE: the zone to create the VM in.
    • MACHINE_TYPE: the machine type to use when creating the VM instance. If you don't specify a machine type, the default is n1-standard-1.
    • IMAGE_NAME: the OS image that was created in the previous step.
    • YOUR_IMAGE_PROJECT: the name of your project that contains the OS image.
  2. Optional: Verify that Compute Engine created the VM and that thenicType is set to GVNIC.
    gcloud compute instances describe VM_NAME \
    --zone=ZONE
    Replace the following:
    • VM_NAME: the name of the VM.
    • ZONE: the zone that you created the VM in.
      Example
      To create a Rocky Linux 8 VM with an n1-standard-1 machine type in zone us-west1-b using an OS image named my-gvnic-rocky8that's in project my-project-12345, run the following command:
      gcloud compute instances create my-rocky-linux-vm \
      --zone=us-west1-b \
      --image=my-gvnic-rocky8 \
      --image-project=my-project-12345 \
      --network-interface=nic-type=GVNIC
      Things to consider
      The --network-interface flag has sub-level flags such as the following:
    • --address: Assign an IP address to the VM
    • --network: The network the interface will be a part of
    • --network-tier: The network tier of the interface
    • --subnet: The subnet that the interface will be part of. If--network is also specified, the subnet must be a part of the specified network.
    • --private-network-ip: Specify the RFC 1918 IP to assign to the VM.
      For a full list see, the--network-interface flag.

REST

Create the VM by using theinstances.insert method.

POST https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/zones/ZONE/instances { "name":"VM_NAME", "networkInterfaces":[ { "network":"NETWORK", "nicType":"GVNIC", "subnet":"SUBNET_NAME" } ], "disks":[ { "initializeParams":{ "sourceImage":"projects/YOUR_IMAGE_PROJECT/global/images/IMAGE_NAME" }, "boot":true } ] }

Replace the following:

Verify that gVNIC is enabled

Linux

You can use the lshw tool to extract detailed information about the hardware configuration of the virtual machine.

To install the lshw tool on your Linux VM instance, open a SSH connection to the VM, and then run the following command:

sudo apt-get install lshw -y

To determine if the VM is using the gVNIC network interface, run the following command:

sudo lshw -class network

The output resembles the following:

*-network description: Ethernet interface product: Compute Engine Virtual Ethernet [gVNIC] vendor: Google, Inc. physical id: 3 bus info: pci@0000:00:03.0 logical name: ens3 version: 00 serial: 42:01:0a:80:00:6f width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: msix bus_master cap_list ethernet physical configuration: autonegotiation=off broadcast=yes driver=gve driverversion=1.0.0 duplex=full ip=10.128.0.111 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=twisted pair resources: irq:11 memory:c0203000-c0203fff memory:c0200000-c02000ff memory:c0100000-c01fffff

Windows

  1. On your Windows VM Instance, open the Device Manager.
  2. Under Network Adapters, you should see: "Google Ethernet Adapter"

Troubleshooting

To troubleshoot gVNIC, seeTroubleshooting Google Virtual NIC.

What's next