Using VFs for i40e driver on Intel x710 NIC card

Issue

• Intel x710 NIC card cannot enable VFs for its ports via usual module parameter max_vfs

# lspci | grep X710
05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller X710 for 10GbE SFP+ (rev 01)
05:00.1 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller X710 for 10GbE SFP+ (rev 01)

# ethtool -i ethX
driver: i40e
version: 1.4.7-k
firmware-version: 5.02 0x80002248 0.0.

With the below configuration file:

# cat /etc/modprobe.d/i40e.conf
options i40e max_vfs=7
blacklist i40e
options loop max_loop=128

When running the following command:

# modprobe i40e max_vfs=4
FATAL: Error inserting i40e (/lib/modules/2.6.32-642.6.2.el6.x86_64/kernel/drivers/net/i40e/i40e.ko): Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)

In dmesg output, the following error appears: i40e: Unknown parameter max_vfs