Add a PCI Device to a Virtual Machine in the VMware Host Client

DirectPath I/O allows the guest operating system of a virtual machine to access the physical PCI and PCIe devices connected to a host directly. By using this technology, you can connect each virtual machine to up to sixteen physical PCI devices. You can use Dynamic DirectPath I/O to assign multiple PCI passthrough devices to a virtual machine. Starting with vSphere 7.0, you can identify the PCI passthrough devices by their vendor and model name.

Note: Some virtual machine operations become unavailable when you add a PCI or PCIe passthrough device to the virtual machine.

For information about the hardware label configuration, see Change the Hardware Label in the VMware Host Client.

Prerequisites

• Power off the virtual machine.

• Verify that you have the Virtual machine.Configuration.Add or remove device privilege on the virtual machine.
• Verify that the PCI devices are connected to the host and marked as available for passthrough.
• If you want to add a dynamic PCI device to a virtual machine, verify that the virtual hardware version is 17.

Procedure

1. In the VMware Host Client inventory, click Virtual Machines.
2. Right-click a virtual machine in the list and select Edit settings from the pop-up menu.
3. On the Virtual Hardware tab, click Add other device and select a device.

   Option	Action
   PCI device	Click PCI device. A new device appears in the hardware list. From the drop-down menu, select a PCI device to connect to the virtual machine.
   Dynamic PCI device	Click Dynamic PCI device. A new device appears in the hardware list. Expand New PCI device, and from the drop-down menu, select the PCI passthrough devices to connect to the virtual machine. You can identify PCI passthrough devices by vendor, model name, and hardware label. Hardware labels, if present, are displayed in brackets. Note: When you add a PCI device to a virtual machine, the full memory size of the virtual machine is automatically reserved.

4. Click Save.