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byteworker
Contributor
Contributor

ESXi 5.1 host accepts no network connetctions

Hi guys,

I installed a new 5.1 ESXi Server from Scratch and there is no network activity!

Through boot process I can see the Intel E1000 driver is loaded.

The physical Link is up and shown correctly on Console too.

But there is no way to ping another host!

The Server was running with 5.0 before without any issues...

It happens with another Testserver too. Both with Intel Nics that were supported in 5.0.

Is there a new trick to get it work? ;o)

I gave it a static address...

Thx for any suggestions.

CAT

44 Replies
mikej2007
Contributor
Contributor

You are right, but the person with the issue also had a x7dca-l.  It's worth a try if you are desperate for a solution.  It can't hurt.

Also, the 5.0 driver needing to be installed may not be the net-e1000e, it may be something else that needs to be researched.

Edit:

The driver name for the 82573L Gigabit Ethernet Controller (which is on the x7dca-l) is e1000e.o

http://www.vm-help.com/esx40i/Hardware_support.php

So I assume net-e1000e would do the trick.

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mikej2007
Contributor
Contributor

My friend, I have good news.  It took me hours of trial and error to get that zip file to the right location, but when I did, it was glorious.

To sum things up, here is what you need to do.

1) Download this file:
https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/OFFLINE/release-346-20120706-638484/ESXi500-201207001.zip

2) Using your favorite method, get that file onto the hard drive that ESXi 5.1 is installed.  Put it in the following directory: /vmfs/volumes/datastore1

-This part took me the longest.  After failing at other methods, I finally mounted my ESXi 5.1 hard drive onto a Windows machine (where I had the zip file downloaded).  Using file explorer, the ESXi hard drive only showed 4 folders, one of which was named "log".  I placed the zip file in the log folder.

-When installing the ESXi hard drive back in my Supermicro (after booting up and pressing Alt+F1 to access shell) those 4 folders that were visible on Windows were located in the /scratch directory. So my zip file could be found in /scratch/log/

-At this point I copied the zip file to /vmfs/volumes/datastore1

#cp /scratch/log/release-346-20120706-638484/ESXi500-201207001.zip /vmfs/volumes/datastore1

Just for good measure, while in the datastore1 directory, verify ownership is root and chmod 777 if you have problems with the next step.

Also verify the file size is the same from the source to the destination directory.

3)Run the following command from ESXi 5.1 shell. (Alt+F1 to get to shell from ESXi menu)

esxcli software vib install -d /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/ESXi500-201207001.zip -n net-e1000e

4)Reboot. (Alt+F2 to return to ESXi menu)

5)Test network connections. (Success)

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rea1ity
Contributor
Contributor

You good job to solve this issue.

I think this issue caused SR-IOV this feature implemented on ESXi5.1 first time so NIC driver on ESXi was changed the architecture as ESXi5.0 to ESXi5.1.

So If you are using 5.0 NIC driver, may you couldn't using SR-IOV feature.

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gsingle
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for this. It worked great.

Just a note to anyone doing this, you must give a fully qualified path to the ESXi ZIP file when you install the driver or you'll get an error. e.g.

esxcli software vib install -d /vmfs/volumes/<datastore>/ESXi500-201207001.zip -n net-e1000

You can't do this from the folder containing the ZIP file:

esxcli software vib install -d ./ESXi500-201207001.zip -n net-e1000

I just copied the ZIP file to a NFS datastore and installed it direct from there, no need to remove the VM bootdisk or connect to windows.

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rkb131313
Contributor
Contributor

dumb question, but i have exact same problem was ready to just give up and go back to esxi 5.0 where works fine.

but if don't have network access because trying to solve it with this very install, then in catch 22.

only thing have is console access.

i'm researching getting to a USB drive, or CDROM from command prompt (alt-f1) when boot esxi, where can mount the USB or CDROM, get to zip file and install.

thanks

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gsingle
Contributor
Contributor

Easiest way is to fit any non-Intel NIC and configure it as an extra management interface. Most server type NIC's should work if you can find one. I happened to have 4 NIC's in my host and it was just the 2 Intel NIC's on my Supermicro motherboard that didn't work, so I was able to access NFS storage via my 2 operable Broadcom NIC's.

This problem is very irritating. When I installed ESXi 5.1 I just happened to choose one of the Intel NIC's and then spent hours checking cables, switch port configs, LACP trunk settings and VLAN configs. It never occurred to me that VMware might have broken something as fundamental as the e1000 NIC driver. I only figured out what was going on when I moved the Management connection to one of my Broadcom NIC's and it suddenly started working.

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mikej2007
Contributor
Contributor

I had the same issue as you.  I spent a majority of my time trying to figure out how to get the zip file onto esxi without a network connection.  I tried to mount a usb flash drive, came very close, but failed.  Next tried a CD, came extremely close, but failed. Finally I took the hard drive, hooked it up to my Windows PC, and was able to drop the file on that way. I then had to copy it from the /scratch directory to the /vmfs/violumes/datastore directory (see my above post).

- For USB, in ESXi shell, the usb is listed as a device, but can't be mounted in ESXi 5.

- I was able to mount the CD drive.  I could then read some ISO discs I had laying around.  However, when I burned the zip onto a blank CD (From my windows PC), I couldn't see the file (extremely frustrating).

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fearme
Contributor
Contributor

mikej,

In order to mount a USB volume in ESXI you must first stop the usbarbitrator service

/etc/init.d/usbarbitrator stop

The drive will then be mounted under the following:

/vmfs/volumes/NO NAME/

Note: You'll need to make sure that the drive is formatted in FAT16 and the partition is less than 2GB in size. Bit of a pain but it works just fine Smiley Wink

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igorle1
Contributor
Contributor

My Supermicro X7DCL has similar problem with ESxi 5.1 and I tried to work around by folloing your instruction. However, my esxi 5.1 hypervisor is installed on USB key (8GB) and no partitions (there are 4 partitions) has enough space to copy ~ 600Mb esxi 5.0 driver.

Could you help me to solve this or give me the .iso file of esxi 5.1 that already has esxi 5.0's e1000 driver. Thank you in advance

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abergman89
Contributor
Contributor

I don't know if Supermicro and DELL is using the same components, but I had issues with a DELL M420 using the vanilla ISO from Vmware, DELL support advised us to try their own custom ISO and it worked well. The DELL ISO can be found here: http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/se/sv/sebsdt1/DriverDetails/Product/poweredge-m420?driverId=5GYK...

Can be worth a try.

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EOCJason
Contributor
Contributor

Wishful thinking. I just tried doing an upgrade from 5.0 to 5.1 using the custom Dell CD on my X7DCL... Networking still doesn't work. It can get an IP via DHCP but that's it... I can't ping anything nor can I connect to the VM box remotely... I think for the time being I'll just stick with 5.0

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americhanac
Contributor
Contributor

yes, who would have thought e1000 is broken on production released system!

Well done to notify, well done to all, it works like a charm now.

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rkb131313
Contributor
Contributor

had same issue for weeks, was so frustrated, vmware tech support could care less.  Went to version 5.0 drivers like was suggested and worked, but just totally absurd that Vmware comes out with latest release, breaks the basic e1000 driver on certain machines and doesn't even care to fix it.   I bet if we cancelled our larger enterprise agreements they might think twice but doubt it.

Vmware is great, their support is questionable, have to resort to other experts to get help even when have enterprise support

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americhanac
Contributor
Contributor

Well, to be honest, I've raised this within my company. It is incredible to hear something like this coming from VMWare so bluntly obvious so we'll take scrutinizing POC's with far more care than before.

I feel like Moody's or Rich&Poor's - putting VMWare's new releases "Credit" rating in the same basket as MS - trash until proven diffrent. Smiley Wink

Shame on you VMWare.

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JeanFlorentine
Contributor
Contributor

Joining the concert,

Fresh new install 5.1 from scratch (no previous 5.0)

First had to purchase an external NIC as on motherboard Packard ixtreme NIC is

not recognised which force Esxi OS installation procedure to stop.

Bought very common TP-Link TG-3468 NIC, install can be done, but just

like you guys no network connectivity.

So i followed the procedure to install net-e1000 and net-e1000e drivers but unlucky, still network KO !

TP-Link TG-3468 NIC is not in the compatibility list but did though it would work with a generic driver.

Anbody know if exist an ESXi 5.0 or 5.1 NIC driver that work with my TP-Link TG-3468 NIC card ?

Alternativly which cheap and easy to find NIC would you advise me to get that can work with driver net-e1000/e?

Thanks

Jean

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JeanFlorentine
Contributor
Contributor

tried TP-Link TG-3468 NIC with Esxi5.0, Network works fine

so it must be an other NIC driver than nic-e1000(e) that is used, but which one then ?

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JSXHawk
Contributor
Contributor

I also faced the same issue, i solved it like this:

1. Grab the ESXi 5.1 ISO from VmWare.

2. Grab the file (.zip) mentioned in earlier posts.

3. Download the ESXi custom iso builder http://www.v-front.de/

4. Use that tool to complile the ISO and include the drivers from the ZIP.

5. Use the new ISO to install ESXi 5.1 with new e1000 driver.

Good luck!

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cyberanto
Contributor
Contributor

Easy way to transfer - use another nic. I installed a Tenda TEL9901G PCI (not PCIe) Gigabit adapter (for $10.-). It uses a driver called r8169 and works out of the box with ESXi 5.1. After this followed procedure outlined before to install the driver for the Intel NIC.

Thanks mikej2007 for the proc to get the intel nic(s) going

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gadaily
Contributor
Contributor

I have compiled many of the tips in different pieces of this and other threads to clarify the process for anyone interested, and to save time.

NOTE: Check the name of your datastore and replace "datastore1" in these instructions with the appropriate name of your actual datastore.

This process will get your Supermicro 1u w/ x7dca-l and 2 Xeon L5420's running ESXi 5.1 with functional NICs, using a USB key:

1) Download this file: https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/OFFLINE/release-346-20120706-638484/ESXi500-201207001.zip

2) Format a USB flash drive that is 2GB or less for FAT16, and copy the downloaded file onto this flash drive.

3) Alt-F1 from the ESXi prompt on the console of the server. This takes you to the command line. Login as root. (You may have to enable ESXi Shell under Troubleshooting Options from the regular ESXi configuration [F2])

4) Run this command: /etc/init.d/usbarbitrator stop

5) Connect your USB flash drive to the server. The drive will then be mounted under the following: /vmfs/volumes/NO NAME/

6) Copy the zip file to /vmfs/volumes/datastore1

cp /vmfs/volumes/"NO NAME"/ESXi500-201207001.zip /vmfs/volumes/datastore1

7) Just for good measure, while in the datastore1 directory, verify ownership is root and chmod 777 if you have problems with the next step.

Also verify the file size is the same from the source to the destination directory.

8)Run the following command: esxcli software vib install -d /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/ESXi500-201207001.zip -n net-e1000e

9)Reboot. (Alt+F2 to return to ESXi menu)

10)Test network connections. (Success)

CiscoKid-FL
Contributor
Contributor

The compilation of steps work perfectly.

Verified on Supermicro X7DCL

Very helpful, thank you.

ESXi performs great on box.

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