SFN8000 series and X2 series Solarflare network adapters support 1024 transmit queues, 1024 receive queues, 1024 event queues and 1024 timer resources per network port. A VNIC (virtual network interface) consists of one unique instance of each of these resources which allows a VNIC client such as the Onload stack, an isolated and safe mechanism of sending and receiving network traffic. Received packets are steered to the correct VNIC by means of IP/MAC filter tables on the network adapter and/or Receive Side Scaling (RSS). An Onload stack allocates one VNIC per Solarflare network port so it has a dedicated send and receive channel from user mode.
Following a reset of the Solarflare network adapter driver, all virtual interface resources including Onload stacks and sockets will be re-instated. The reset operation will be transparent to the application, but traffic will be lost during the reset.