Wangxun 10/25/40 GbE SR-IOV virtual function NICs
Guest-side support for the virtual functions exposed by Wangxun's 10, 25, and 40 Gigabit Ethernet controllers (SP1000A, WX1820AL, WX5025, WX5040 and related parts) when those NICs are split among virtual machines using SR-IOV. Wangxun is a Chinese networking silicon vendor whose adapters are still being sold and updated in 2025.
recommendation
It should stay because the hardware is current product, not legacy: vendor datasheets and product pages were refreshed as recently as late 2025, and the driver itself saw nine substantive commits in 2025 adding features like ethtool support, adaptive interrupt coalescing, and receive-descriptor merging. Deployment is niche compared to mainstream Intel or Mellanox NICs, but active upstream development and ongoing sales make removal unjustified.
repository signals
sources
- docs.kernel.org
Upstream kernel documentation describes txgbevf as the Linux VF driver for Wangxun 10/25/40 Gigabit Ethernet devices and points users to the current vendor site/support contact.
- cateee.net
LKDDb shows CONFIG_TXGBEVF present in current kernel series and lists PCI IDs for SP1000A, WX1820AL, WX5025/WX5025AL, and WX5040/WX5040AL virtual functions.
- net-swift.com
The vendor's current product navigation still lists SP1000A, WX1820AL, and newer Wangxun Ethernet controller families, indicating the product line remains commercially active.
- net-swift.com
Vendor product page published on 2024-12-03 markets WX5025 as a current 25GbE controller with SR-IOV support up to 128 VFs, matching this driver's virtualization use case.
- net-swift.com
A vendor-hosted SP1000A datasheet revision published in late 2025 shows ongoing documentation maintenance for the supported 10GbE family.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Local shell inspection confirmed this is a real PCI netdriver with module entry points and VF PCI IDs. Local `git -c safe.directory=... log` showed 9 substantive 2025 commits, including initial bring-up and later feature work (ethtool, adaptive coalescing, TX head write-back, RX desc merge), so upstream attention is active and not removal-oriented. URLs were obtained via `web.search_query`; local Kconfig/docs were read with shell `sed`. Deployment is rated low because this is a vendor-specific SR-IOV VF driver for Wangxun NICs, not a broad commodity guest NIC, but the hardware family is still being sold/documented in 2025 so deprecation is not justified.