VMware Cloud Community
therealmilo
Contributor
Contributor

Realtek 8111G, nic identified but no flow

I Recently got myself a shuttle ds47. It has dual onboard realtek 8111G nics. Vmware esxi 5.1 identifies the nics as realtek 8168 adapters. The assigned ip and mac address of the nics shows up in my switches, but i can't ping the esxi host, and there is no flow.

any ideas? Or do i just have to wait and see if vmware decides to support these adapters?

Tags (4)
38 Replies
mazebaer
Contributor
Contributor

I have the same problem. I tested the DS47 with 5.1, 5.1U1 and 5.5

VMWare removed all realtek drivers in 5.5. So I have no hope, that they will integrate the 8111G in any version

I'm thinking about a MiniPCIe LAN card. But I didn't found a supported one.

Did anyone have experience with an MiniPCIe and ESXi?

Reply
0 Kudos
zXi_Gamer
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

That is quite an interesting behavior. I have a ESXi 5.1 with realtek 811G card and is working without any async driver or any issues till now Smiley Happy

When you said that the drivers are detected and mac address is acknowledged. Can you confirm the following outputs:

esxcfg-nics -l

vsish -e get /net/pNics/vmnicX/properties


@

Please check the below link if your driver is unable to be loaded.

TinkerTry IT @ home | Install ESXi 5.5 with Realtek 8111/8168 NIC

Reply
0 Kudos
mazebaer
Contributor
Contributor

Hi zXi_Gamer,

that sounds like hope !!!

Meanwhile the dark side of force was on approach - I installed the free Microsoft HyperV 2012

There was at the beginning the same problem. The OS recognize the nics as 8168. The link at the switch was up - but no traffic.

After installing the actual driver from Shuttle, the network of the 2012 server works fine - therefore the hardware is ok.

BUT - installing the management software without domain is the greatest shit - RPC and ServerManager is ok,but HyperV Manager failed.

ESXi recognize the nics also as 8168, not as 8111. It shows the link as "UP"

I post a "screenshot".

The link from TinkerTry describes a) how to install the 5.1 Driver in 5.5 - but 5.1 is not running, so it makes no sense to upgrade

and b) how to buy a new hardware. The DS47 has no extensions slots - only MiniPCIe, so it is not possible do install a certified nic.

by the way - I tried different network speed and duplex settings

20130930_204656_1.jpg

Reply
0 Kudos
eivamu
Contributor
Contributor

Hi everyone,

There are unsupported drivers for Realtek 8168 and 8169 that will work with ESXi if they are injected into a custom installation ISO. I don't have a DS47, but I do have a DS61 and I believe the NICs are all the same. I was previously running ESXi 5.0 with these drivers, and now I'm running ESXi 5.5 (final) with the same drivers and it works like a charm! (Realtek drivers were included in 5.1 only to be removed from 5.5.)

Here's a very nice how-to:

Adding Realtek R8168 Driver to ESXi 5.5.0 ISO | Erik Bussink

I downloaded the drivers directly from that very site and injected them into the ISO with the ESXi Customizer. Easy peasy Smiley Happy

Reply
0 Kudos
mazebaer
Contributor
Contributor

Hi eivamu,

thanks for your reply.

We don't discuss to include the drivers in 5.5

We want to work with 5.1 and the DS47.

The DS47 have a Realtek 8111G network card. The DS61 a 8111E.

Obviously the 8111G is not exactly compatible to the 8168 drivers which were included in the ESXi 5.1

The same experience I had with Server 2012. The OS recognize the network card as a 8168 and doesn't work (same errors like under ESXi).

After updating with the actual 8111G driver, Windows is running well.

So - what we need is a driver for the 8111G.

Reply
0 Kudos
eivamu
Contributor
Contributor

Hi mazebaer,

Sorry for the mix-up, I was obviously reading too many discussions at the same time :smileyblush: And thanks for the clarification about 8111E vs. 8111G. Since I'm thinking about getting one or two DS47s for ESXi it's crucial to get networking up and running.

Have you tried the drivers from the page I linked to? Are they the same as provided with the default 5.1 ISO?

Reply
0 Kudos
mazebaer
Contributor
Contributor

Hi eivamu,

no problem...

Therefore eric included the default 5.1 drivers in 5.5 I have no hope to test this procedure.

Perhaps someone else have any idea to modify the existing 5.1 drivers.

It couldn't be a lot.

The switch get an up link. Also the OS recognize a network cable and show up and down states (see screenshot)

There is only no traffic... no ping inside or from outside, no DHCP broadcasts, nothing

Different speed and duplex settings were not successful

The reason I choosed the DS47 are the USB 3.0 ports :smileyplain:

Reply
0 Kudos
eivamu
Contributor
Contributor

I've never tried modifying drivers myself, but I suspect you are right that very little should be needed given your description of the problem.

I found a thread about getting a 8111G driver for FreeBSD to work here:

http://freebsd.1045724.n5.nabble.com/Shuttle-DS47-Realtek-RT-8111G-td5844079.html

They're discussing some technicalities about the 8111G itself. Maybe it can help? Also, came to think, could it be possible to find very detailed information about the 8111E and 8111G (I wouldn't know where to look) and do a detailed comparison?

Reply
0 Kudos
eivamu
Contributor
Contributor

Andreas Peetz talks about building custom drivers for ESXi derived from Linux drivers here:

VMware Front Experience: How to build device drivers for ESXi 5.x

The official Linux drivers for Realtek 8111G are located here (Linux driver updated less than two weeks ago):

http://www.realtek.com.tw/Downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=2&PNid=13&PFid=5&Level=5&Conn=4&DownTy...

The source code for the Linux driver is included in the download. The driver version is 8.037 which is quite more recent than the one provided with ESXi 5.1. Please let me know if you're going to try this approach. I don't have any hardware to test on myself Smiley Happy

Reply
0 Kudos
mazebaer
Contributor
Contributor

Hi eivamu

thanks for your investigations and the links.

It seems like work for cold winter nights :smileygrin:

I will try to try this in the next weeks and will report any results

Reply
0 Kudos
therealmilo
Contributor
Contributor

any luck? Smiley Happy

Reply
0 Kudos
mazebaer
Contributor
Contributor

Hi therealmilo

meanwhile I build up a test environment.

With less linux experience it will take time

the first compilation generated errors, so I have to look for them

I will post any success

mazebaer
Contributor
Contributor

at the moment, I couldn't fix the errors

it seems there is a conflict between functions calls in the new driver and kernel version / compiler / other libs

I tried different distributions (CentOS , Ubuntu)

see also   http://www.vm-help.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=4452&p=0&e=0&sid=fd03b4cef21a6c22347cdd2c78118505

so I have no hope to find a solution for using ESXi with Realtek 8111G

VMware removed some drivers in the version 5.5 and they are on the way to remove the Linux driver model

Reply
0 Kudos
therealmilo
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for trying though... Smiley Happy

Reply
0 Kudos
eivamu
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for trying! Smiley Happy

Reply
0 Kudos
mazebaer
Contributor
Contributor

Meanwhile I tried to change the source code

I achieved to eliminate some errors

but for the remaining I have no idea in the moment


Reply
0 Kudos
jijiwiwi
Contributor
Contributor

I am using Asus H87-Plus motherboard which has a realtek 8111g NIC.

Same as you. It is recognized by Esxi 5.1. But not working well.

The situation is like this.

If using DHCP or manual IP address with GW IP address, the NIC will fail in about 1 minutes. After reboot, it will work in a short time and fail in about 1 minute.

However, if I manually configure IP address WITHOUT GW IP address, it will work well.

Try to configure IP address without GW in your machine.

Hope this helps in your situation.

eivamu
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for your report, jijiwiwi Smiley Happy It certainly is interesting. Do we know if it would also work under ESXi 5.5? And since I'm not a networking expert, would doing without a GW be adequate for a typical home lab setup?

Reply
0 Kudos
jijiwiwi
Contributor
Contributor

You are welcome. I learned from your post too.

It is kind of weird. The gateway give the machine ability to talk to different network subnet. Without GW, machines in the same subnet can communicate without problem. So in the home lab, if you only have one subnet, the GW can be blank.

In my particular case, the NIC stops working if I have GW configured. I tried to erase DNS, but it is the same result. Since configuring GW give the machine Internet access,I thought it may because of the internet. I thought ESXi talks to something from Internet in about 1 minute, makes it stop working. Just my thought. I didn't have chance to try but I will do the test sooner or later.

sO

I actually tried to install ESXi 5.5. It failed during installation. No sure hardware issue or I download a bad ISO. Then I tried 5.1 and it worked. So I really don't know if the network card work in 5.5. From other thread looks like realtek VIB is removed in 5.5. So even less chance it will work under 5.5.

Reply
0 Kudos