Bug ID 2044417: Connectivity problems and eal-intr-thread cores on Azure using >= 6 interfaces

Last Modified: Dec 18, 2025

Affected Product(s):
BIG-IP LTM(all modules)

Known Affected Versions:
17.5.0, 17.5.1, 17.5.1.2, 17.5.1.3

Fixed In:
21.0.0

Opened: Aug 26, 2025

Severity: 2-Critical

Symptoms

With Hyper-V platforms, VMBus devices are present due to the virtualization architecture. These devices make use of VMBus channels in the /sys/bus directories. Hyper-V has a reported supported limit of 128 monitored VMBus channels. Patches for non-monitored (low-speed) VMBus channels have caused connectivity problems and eal-intr-thread cores.

Impact

Traffic interrupts and eal-intr-thread cores can occur.

Conditions

-- Use Hyper-V platform -- Use 16 vCPUs and attach >= 7 interfaces -- Use 24 vCPUs and attach >= 6 interfaces

Workaround

Deploy instances with <= 3 interfaces on Hyper-V platforms.

Fix Information

Regardless of combinations of vCPU and interface counts, traffic can be passed and eal-intr-thread cores are limited. VMBus channels correspond with device queues so the 128 monitored VMBus channel limit forces queue-sharing and impacts performance. To avoid losing performance, deploy instances with fewer interfaces.

Behavior Change

Guides & references

K10134038: F5 Bug Tracker Filter Names and Tips