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1 2 Previous Next 29 Replies Last post: Jun 20, 2009 10:41 AM by scottburgan  

Need help updating a driver posted: Jan 29, 2009 6:19 AM

Click to view ScottChapman's profile Enthusiast
ScottChapman
103 posts since
Dec 8, 2008

Anyone with the capability of building the current ESXi drivers willing to make a one line change to the Intel igx drivers to (hopefully) add support for a new Intel network card?

I am willing to validate it if someone can help meget the change made.

Re: Need help updating a driver

1. Jan 29, 2009 7:04 AM in response to: ScottChapman
Click to view nick.couchman's profile Champion
nick.couchman
4,969 posts since
Jan 13, 2006
Are you talking about updating the driver source code or are you referring to the simple.map file, which maps PCI IDs to drivers? Updating the driver itself isn't all that simple - if someone has successfully compiled drivers for ESXi (without the VMware DDK), I'd love to talk to that person and get a few pointers. If you're talking about the simple.map file, check out vm-help.com, as it should have instructions for making this change yourself.

Re: Need help updating a driver

2. Jan 29, 2009 7:07 AM in response to: nick.couchman
Click to view ScottChapman's profile Enthusiast
ScottChapman
103 posts since
Dec 8, 2008

I have done the change to the map. The problem is that the Intel igx driver has a hard coded list of PCI IDs it supports, and the new intel card is not on that list.

Granted, this is a new card so this might not actually work, but I figure it is worth a try.

Seems like it would a nice thing to be able to easily add support for this new card to other users of ESXi...

Anyway, if you can build it, I can tell you what line to change...

Thanks in advance!

Re: Need help updating a driver

3. Jan 29, 2009 7:18 AM in response to: ScottChapman
Click to view nick.couchman's profile Champion
nick.couchman
4,969 posts since
Jan 13, 2006
I haven't figured out a way to build a driver that will actually load in ESXi. I've built the drivers using the GPL sources, but the resulting drivers do not load correctly in ESX(i), so I'm guessing I'm missing something about building them, or I'm required to have the VMware Driver Development Kit (DDK) to make it work correctly (costs $5K). If I can figure out a way to build drivers that will load in ESX(i), I'll let you know and I'll be happy to compile it for you. You also might check VMware and Intel's sites for updated igx drivers - seems like VMware had a driver download specifically for this driver at one point to add support to ESX and/or ESXi.

Re: Need help updating a driver

4. Jan 29, 2009 7:59 AM in response to: nick.couchman
Click to view ScottChapman's profile Enthusiast
ScottChapman
103 posts since
Dec 8, 2008

Sure, I appreciate it. Let me know.

Also, where would I look for updated drivers? I have run the update commands on the CLI of my host

Re: Need help updating a driver

5. Jan 29, 2009 8:58 AM in response to: ScottChapman
Click to view nick.couchman's profile Champion
nick.couchman
4,969 posts since
Jan 13, 2006
Check out the VI Download section of the VMware site (http://www.vmware.com/download/vi) - there's a section toward the bottom of the page for drivers and tools.

Re: Need help updating a driver

6. Jan 29, 2009 9:09 AM in response to: nick.couchman
Click to view ScottChapman's profile Enthusiast
ScottChapman
103 posts since
Dec 8, 2008

First, are those compatible with ESXi? They look like they are for ESX.

Also, the update for the igb includes support for the 82575 chip, but mine is the 82576 chip so I am not sure it would apply anyway.

Re: Need help updating a driver

7. Jan 29, 2009 9:13 AM in response to: ScottChapman
Click to view nick.couchman's profile Champion
nick.couchman
4,969 posts since
Jan 13, 2006
ESX and ESXi drivers should be interchangeable. As long as you can get it to install correctly into ESXi, then, yes, it should work.

Re: Need help updating a driver

8. Jan 29, 2009 9:17 AM in response to: nick.couchman
Click to view ScottChapman's profile Enthusiast
ScottChapman
103 posts since
Dec 8, 2008
OK, but I am skeptical that my card is supported since it is not explicitely mentioned.

Re: Need help updating a driver

9. Jan 29, 2009 10:59 AM in response to: ScottChapman
Click to view ScottChapman's profile Enthusiast
ScottChapman
103 posts since
Dec 8, 2008

I cracked the IOS, the RPM, and the cpio file and discovered that my card is listed in the XML file for the driver.

awesome! Thanks!

Re: Need help updating a driver

10. Jan 29, 2009 1:10 PM in response to: nick.couchman
Click to view ScottChapman's profile Enthusiast
ScottChapman
103 posts since
Dec 8, 2008

OK, I got the driver update stuff onto my machine, and I changed directory to the RPMS directory and ran "esxupdate update" which appeared to do nothing.

Any ideas?

Re: Need help updating a driver

11. Jan 29, 2009 1:19 PM in response to: ScottChapman
Click to view Dave.Mishchenko's profile Guru User Moderators vExpert
Dave.Mishchen…
9,179 posts since
Nov 15, 2005
You'll want to extract the driver file from the patch and then bundle it into oem.tgz. That's been done successfully with the e1000e driver that was released for ESX but has not made it into ESXi. Keep in mind that at some point the patched driver will make it into ESXi at which point you'd want to replace oem.tgz with the default file that makes no changes.

Re: Need help updating a driver

12. Jan 29, 2009 2:18 PM in response to: Dave.Mishchen…
Click to view ScottChapman's profile Enthusiast
ScottChapman
103 posts since
Dec 8, 2008

OK, so if I open up the ISO, I see a few RPMs:

kernel-source-350.2.4.21-57.EL.137613.i386.rpm
kernel-vmnix-350.2.4.21-57.EL.137613.i686.rpm
VMware-esx-drivers-net-igb-350.1.3.8.6.3-73033.i386.rpm
vmware-hwdata-1.00-13vmw.noarch.rpm

I assume I only need to worry about the igb one. The contents of it look like this:

C:\dir>dir /b /s
C:\dir\etc
C:\dir\usr
C:\dir\etc\vmware
C:\dir\etc\vmware\pciid
C:\dir\etc\vmware\pciid\igb.xml
C:\dir\usr\lib
C:\dir\usr\share
C:\dir\usr\lib\vmware
C:\dir\usr\lib\vmware-debug
C:\dir\usr\lib\vmware\vmkmod
C:\dir\usr\lib\vmware\vmkmod\igb.o
C:\dir\usr\lib\vmware-debug\vmkmod
C:\dir\usr\lib\vmware-debug\vmkmod\igb.o
C:\dir\usr\share\doc
C:\dir\usr\share\doc\VMware-esx-drivers-net-igb-1.3.8.6.3
C:\dir\usr\share\doc\VMware-esx-drivers-net-igb-1.3.8.6.3\COPYING
C:\dir\usr\share\doc\VMware-esx-drivers-net-igb-1.3.8.6.3\file.list
C:\dir\usr\share\doc\VMware-esx-drivers-net-igb-1.3.8.6.3\README

Re: Need help updating a driver

13. Jan 29, 2009 2:48 PM in response to: ScottChapman
Click to view Dave.Mishchenko's profile Guru User Moderators vExpert
Dave.Mishchen…
9,179 posts since
Nov 15, 2005
Yes - just this - C:\dir\usr\lib\vmware\vmkmod\igb.o.

Re: Need help updating a driver

14. Jan 29, 2009 2:56 PM in response to: Dave.Mishchen…
Click to view ScottChapman's profile Enthusiast
ScottChapman
103 posts since
Dec 8, 2008
OK, so I would just create an oem.tgz that contained \usr\lib\vmware\vmkmod\igb.o

or does it need to be a different path?


I couldn't find the file in that location on my server. I did find it in /mod

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