Hello!
Recently I first time installed ESXi 6.5 with Net55-r8168 driver added to ISO. I have 3 NICs in the computer, but I see only two of them, vmnic0 is missing. Here is console output:
[root@localhost:~] lspci -v | grep -A1 -i ethernet
0000:03:00.0 Ethernet controller Network controller: D-Link System Inc DGE-560T PCI Express (x1) Gigabit Ethernet Adapter [vmnic2]
Class 0200: 1186:4300
--
0000:04:00.0 Ethernet controller Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. P8P67 and other motherboards [vmnic1]
Class 0200: 10ec:8168
--
0000:06:00.0 Ethernet controller Network controller: D-Link System Inc DGE-528T PCI Gigabit Ethernet Adapter [vmnic0]
Class 0200: 1186:4300
[root@localhost:~] esxcfg-nics -l
Name PCI Driver Link Speed Duplex MAC Address MTU Description
vmnic1 0000:04:00.0 r8168 Down 0Mbps Half 00:0b:0e:0f:00:ed 1500 Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. P8P67 and other motherboards
vmnic2 0000:03:00.0 r8168 Up 1000Mbps Full c4:a8:1d:7d:a0:fa 1500 D-Link System Inc DGE-560T PCI Express (x1) Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
I thought Net55-r8168 has a driver for D-Link DGE-528T, the card has the same class as DGE-560T... So I don't understand what's going on, cause I have little to no experience with ESXi and *nix in general. How to get it working from here?
Still have no machines in this installation, so it could be easily reinstalled.
Welcome to the Community,
please take a look at https://www.v-front.de/2015/03/vsphere-6-is-ga-ultimate-guide-to.html which provides information about adding the required drivers to an ESXi v6.x image.
André
André,
if you take another look at the output, you will see, than another card with the same class is working – "D-Link System Inc DGE-560T PCI Express (x1) Gigabit Ethernet Adapter [vmnic2]" with Class 0200: 1186:4300.
And "D-Link System Inc DGE-528T PCI Gigabit Ethernet Adapter [vmnic0]" with Class 0200: 1186:4300 doesn't work, ESXi doesn't see it.
There is no any other driver than Net55-r8168 for 1186:4300 (or specifically for DGE-528T) and Net55-r8168 was already added to ISO.
Hi Ivan,
the driver is loaded for the DGE-528T card, and it should show up as vmnic0.
Since it is not listed by "esxcfg-nics -l" there was probably an error when initializing the card.
Can you please check the host's boot log for related error messages?
In an ESXi shell run something like
gunzip -cd /var/log/boot.gz | less
to look at the file. Search with "/vmnic0".
Andreas
Have you checked the VMware Hardware compatibilty guide found here:
VMware Compatibility Guide - System Search
To make sure that the NIC is supported?
Hello Andreas,
I checked this log on my side, and just one entry there saying:
..../vmnic0 named as "" .
No errors.
Regards
Aleh