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besson3c
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Contributor

Confused about what NIC to purchase for ESXi 4

Hello,

I'm thoroughly confused.

I bought this NIC for use with ESXi 4 u1 thinking that it would work out-of-the-box:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833106121

There is even comment there from a user saying that this works in ESXi 4. Every HCL I've come across lists the Intel Pro/1000 GT as being compatible with ESXi, but I've come to find out that this isn't true. I've been having the same problem as the guy who started this thread:

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1297009

However, I'm unable to install the driver posted to this thread without network access. I've tried all sorts of things. Rather than continue messing around to get this to work, perhaps using another NIC temporarily and having to go through all of this again the next time I need to reinstall ESXi, I'd rather just get a NIC that will work out-of-the-box. I'm still able to return/replace my card through NewEgg.

Can somebody kindly point me at a similar card on NewEgg that for sure, without question works in ESXi? I'm still baffled as to why reports about this card vary so much, so I'm sort of paranoid about returning this and randomly trying something else.

Thanks in advance for entertaining my frustration and paranoia, and helping offer me some assurances Smiley Happy

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Dave_Mishchenko
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Moved to the ESXi 4 forum.




Dave

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DSTAVERT
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Immortal

Thanks

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besson3c
Contributor
Contributor

Then

The HCL shows the 82541PI based card as being supported for 3.5 and NOT supported under 4.

You're right! Sorry, I missed that completely somehow even though I've gone through that list several times. I must be blind! This card is, however, not listed on this page, perhaps in error? http://vm-help.com/esx40i/Hardware_support_removed.php

This must be exactly where this driver: http://downloads.vmware.com/d/details/esx_esxi40_intel_82575_82576_dt/ZCV0YmR0QGpidHdw comes into play given that it is reported to work with my NIC, and is listed as being for ESXi 4? However, you said that this driver would have been included and provided in ESXi anyway? This is where it gets confusing to me... Could the info in the official VMWare HCL for this NIC simply not be up-to-date? If I need to install this driver, how can I go about doing this w/o network access?

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DSTAVERT
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It is certainly possible that the driver you linked to is different than the ones included in Up 1.

You can try from the Unsupported Console but you will need to find a way to copy the file to the disk. Boot from a linux rescue disk or ?? and copy the file to the datastore.???

Boot ESXi and put it into maintenance mode.

From the unsupported console you can try

>esxupdate --bundle=INT-intel-lad-ddk-igb-1.3.19.12.1-offline_bundle-185976.zip update

-- David -- VMware Communities Moderator
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besson3c
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It is certainly possible that the driver you linked to is different than the ones included in Up 1.

You can try from the Unsupported Console but you will need to find a way to copy the file to the disk. Boot from a linux rescue disk or ?? and copy the file to the datastore.???

Boot ESXi and put it into maintenance mode.

From the unsupported console you can try

>esxupdate --bundle=INT-intel-lad-ddk-igb-1.3.19.12.1-offline_bundle-185976.zip update

Ahhh.. I didn't realize that the esxupdate binary was available, I was looking for vlhostupdate.

I copied over the bundle to my datastore as you said, put the host into maintenance mode:

vim-cmd hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter

installed the driver successfully, and rebooted. It came up using the e1000 driver, same results, so I altered the simple.map to use the igb driver instead, rebooted, and got the warning about not being able to find supported hardware.

I was hopeful about this, but it looks like this puzzle persists... The driver is very clearly an IGB driver, right, so all I have to do is change the simple map entry for my PCI ID from e1000.o to igb.o to use the new driver, right?

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Dave_Mishchenko
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Based on this

>Doing an lspci -p I see that the e1000 driver is loaded for my card with ID 8086:107c. According to this: http://www.vm->help.com/esx/esx3i/Hardware_support.php#Intel this is exactly the right driver for this card. When I do an esxcfg-nics -l I see the card using the e1000, >but when I attempt to use it does not work and cannot get a DHCP lease.

you want to stick with the e1000 driver. Just to confirm when you run lspci -p is a module (e1000) listed for the NIC? What status does esxfcg-nics -l show for the NIC? Have you tried to manually set an IP address?

Dave

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besson3c
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Based on this

>Doing an lspci -p I see that the e1000 driver is loaded for my card with ID 8086:107c. According to this: http://www.vm->help.com/esx/esx3i/Hardware_support.php#Intel this is exactly the right driver for this card. When I do an esxcfg-nics -l I see the card using the e1000, >but when I attempt to use it does not work and cannot get a DHCP lease.

you want to stick with the e1000 driver. Just to confirm when you run lspci -p is a module (e1000) listed for the NIC? What status does esxfcg-nics -l show for the NIC? Have you tried to manually set an IP address?

I haven't checked on lspci -p in a while, but esxcfg-nics -l was definitely showing the NIC assigned to e1000. With the NIC manually assigned an IP address I can ping it part of the time, the rest of the time my pings timeout. The timeouts seem to be related to the traffic involved such as trying to connect to it via the vSphere Client, since doing this consistently causes the timeouts as if duplexing is an issue, although the esxcfg-nics -l output shows full duplexing is detected.

If I do a esxcfg-nics -a vmnic0 I sometimes lose my connection to the NIC causing it to show up with a speed of 0, half duplex, and "disconnected" in the management GUI.

This card is detected out of the box, it seems like it ought to work, it just seems buggy as hell. What has really been messing with my head is the conflicting reports I'm getting about the status of this card and people's success in getting it to work, and it's not like this card is obscure or uncommon in anyway.

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Dave_Mishchenko
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Have you tried to set the duplex / speed on the switch as well?




Dave

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besson3c
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Have you tried to set the duplex / speed on the switch as well?<br><br><br><br><br>Dave

VMware Communities User Moderator

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Do you have a system or PCI card working with VMDirectPath? Submit your specs to the Unofficial VMDirectPath HCL.

Yes, manually setting properties via ethtool or esxcfg-nics seems to have no effect, and sometimes causes the NIC to revert to a disconnected state. Some of the properties such as TSO are not configurable with this NIC. I don't know if TSO is a feature typically reversed for server NICs?

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Dave_Mishchenko
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Do some searching in the forum for esxcfg-module and e1000. You might find some problem similar to yours.

This KB article will tell you have to use the command - http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1013413.

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Dave_Mishchenko
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Do some searching in the forum for esxcfg-module and e1000. You might find some problem similar to yours.

This KB article will tell you have to use the command - http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1013413.






Dave

VMware Communities User Moderator

Now available - vSphere Quick Start Guide

Do you have a system or PCI card working with VMDirectPath? Submit your specs to the Unofficial VMDirectPath HCL.

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besson3c
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Do some searching in the forum for esxcfg-module and e1000. You might find some problem similar to yours.

This KB article will tell you have to use the command - http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1013413.

The only article that comes up is this very thread Smiley Happy

I looked at esxcfg-module before and tried a couple of commands with it, but I felt like I was sort of flailing about in the dark. Are there any particular commands/options you'd recommend to help with my flailing? Smiley Happy

Thank you, BTW...

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besson3c
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So, I went and bought an Intel Pro server adapter and installed it...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833106114

This is clearly labeled as supported by VMWare in their compatibility list. Exact same results: a combination of packets received and dropped. A comment on the NewEgg page confirms it working in ESXi 4.

The odd thing is, doing a:

lspci -p

shows using PCI ID: 8086:1026

while lspci shows that the chipset is 82545GM. According to the simple map file on vm-help:

http://vm-help.com/esx40i/Hardware_support.php#Intel

this PCI ID belongs to the 8254NXX Gigabit Ethernet Controller chipset. The 82545GM chipset is not listed on this page. Is it possible that I got myself another incompatible card? I kind of doubt it, but I don't know what else it could be.

Again:

1) Both cards work in Ubuntu in the same PCI slot on the same machine

2) I've disabled all hardware not-in-use within the BIOS

3) The card is detected (rightly or wrongly) by ESXi, the machine boots

4) Some packets are being dropped, I cannot connect via vSphere Client

Because I'm experiencing the exact same problem I'm tempted to think that this might be something hardware related with my PC, but I can't think of what this might be...

Any ideas?

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