Intel® Ethernet Adapters and Devices User Guide

ID Date Version Classification
705831 12/05/2024 Public
Document Table of Contents

Malicious Driver Detection (MDD) for VFs

Some Intel® Ethernet devices use Malicious Driver Detection (MDD) to detect malicious traffic from the VF and disable Tx/Rx queues or drop the offending packet until a VF driver reset occurs. You can view MDD messages in the PF’s event log.

  • If the device supports automatic VF resets and the driver detects an MDD event on the receive path, the PF will automatically reset the VF and reenable queues. If automatic VF resets are disabled, the PF will not automatically reset the VF when it detects MDD events. See the table below for supported MDD features.

  • If the PF driver logs MDD events from the VF, confirm that the correct VF driver is installed.

  • To restore functionality, you can manually reload the VF or VM or, if supported by the device, enable automatic VF resets.

The following table shows MDD capabilities by device family:

  • Intel Ethernet 800 Series

  • Intel Ethernet 700 Series

  • Intel Ethernet 500 Series

  • Intel I350 Gigabit Network Connection

Feature

800 Series

700 Series

500 Series

I350

Automatically resets the VF and reenables queues after MDD events

If enabled

If enabled

Yes

Yes

Can disable automatic VF reset after MDD events

Yes

Yes

No

No

MDD Auto Reset VFs

This feature automatically resets the virtual machine immediately after the device detects a Malicious Driver Detection (MDD) event on the receive path.

To change this setting in Intel® PROSet:

This setting is found on the Advanced tab of the device’s Device Manager property sheet or in the Adapter Settings panel in Intel® PROSet Adapter Configuration Utility (Intel® PROSet ACU).

To change this setting in Windows PowerShell*, use the Set-IntelNetAdapterSetting cmdlet. For example:

Set-IntelNetAdapterSetting -Name "<adapter_name>" -DisplayName "MDD Auto Reset VFs"
-DisplayValue "Enabled"

Possible values for this setting are:

  • Enabled

  • Disabled