Issue:
There are times when you might want or need to limit the amount of Physical CPUs (PCPU) presented to ESXi. It can be either a licensing issue or perhaps you just need to run some testing. For whatever reason, physically removing the CPUs is not an option so you need a way to tell ESXi to ignore the excess Physical CPUs.
Resolution:
- Modify the VMkernel.Boot.maxPCPUS setting
- This is listed under Configuration -> Software -> Advanced Settings ->VMKernel -> Boot
- The number you put here depends on your configuration. For instance, if you have a 4 proc by 4 core system and you want to reduce the number of physical processors to 2 and maximize the logical processors, you would put 8 as the number. 2×4.
- If you have a 4 proc by 2 core system and you want to reduce the number of physical processors to 2 and maximize the logical processors, you would put 4 as the number. 2×2
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