Installing RealTek 2.5Gbps chipset 8125 drivers on ESXi 6.7

[RdGameboy]

Hello all,

This weekend I started setting up my first ESXi server. My hardware is

CPU: 1920x AMD Threadripper 12 core processor

MOBO: ASRock X399 Phantom Gaming 6

RAM: 4x16GB 2400 UDIMMs non-ECC Crucial/ Micron

GPU0: Sapphire Pulse AMD Radeon RX550 (for server monitor)

GPU1: AMD Radeon Pro Duo (for virtualization)

HBA card: LSI 9210-8i

I'm running the latest update to ESXi 6.7

I'm trying to set it up so that there's the Hypervisor with 2 cores, 8GB RAM and the RX550; a FreeNAS VM with 4 cores, 32GB RAM, the HBA card; and a Windows 10 VM with 6 cores, 24GB RAM, and the Radeon Pro Duo. For the most part this has been going smoothly compared to HyperV! The GPU passthrough was easy enough and FreeNAS is having no issues after I figured out how to pass drives directly to it. My problem now is that only one of my onboard NICs is detected. I found out that ESXi does not natively support RealTek NICs, so I started by following this guide: ESXi 6.5 enable Realtek NICs • Nolabnoparty . Basically I was hoping that even though this guide is for a different set of NIC chipsets it would just work. That's unfortunately not how it worked out.

Next I attempted to download the drivers I did need using curl, which wasn't working so I used wget. This was also unsuccessful so I just downloaded the drivers to a flash drive formatted to FAT32 and copied the files using this guide: . After doing so I made the files executable via the same process as this StackOverflow post: . Unfortunately the script returns the error:

`find: /lib/modules/6.7.0/kernel/drivers/net/ethernet: No such file or directory

find: /lib/modules/6.7.0/kernel/drivers/net: No such file or directory

Check old driver and unload it.

./autorun.sh: line 1: lsmod: not found

Build the module and install

./autorun.sh: line 30: make: not found`

I checked this file location and unfortunately `/lib/modules/` does not exist. So I guess these drivers are for desktop only? Anyway. What else can I try before I just buy a different 2.5Gbps NIC?

Thanks!

RdGameboy

[buggine]

Did you find a solution to this?  I'm also looking for Vib drivers for the 8125 controller used in 2.5 nics?

[Alex_Romeo]

Hi,

you must follow the procedure described in the document to create an ESXi 6.7 image with the drivers of your network card.

• Sysadmin Stories: Adding Realtek 8111 driver to vSphere 6.7 image

• http://woshub.com/add-drivers-vmware-esxi-iso-image/
  • How to Find and Download Drivers for VMWare ESXi?
  • How to Inject a Driver into ESXi Image Using ESXi-Customizer GUI Tool?
  • Adding Drivers Using the PowerShell Script – ESXi-Customizer-PS

ARomeo

[chadedie]

Can this process also be followed to add realtek 8125B drivers to Esxi 7.0?

[scott28tt]

@chadedie 

That depends on whether the driver type is “vmklinux” or “native” as the support for “vmklinux” drivers was removed in ESXi 7.

[momo1010]

Hello,

Could someone have found a driver for the Dragon RTL8125BG in .VIB or TGZ please thank you

[kopfik]

GitHub - realganfan/r8125-esxi: Realtek RTL8125 driver for ESXi 6.7 

[kopfik]

GitHub - realganfan/r8125-esxi: Realtek RTL8125 driver for ESXi 6.7

[Guibao]

Posting my findings here so it gets better visibility.

Found an ESXi 6.7 iso imagem with embedded Realtek 8125b drivers. Tested and working on my Asus TUF Gaming B550m board running a R7 5800.

Link is at the bottom of the page:

https://forum.odroid.com/viewtopic.php?f=170&t=39623&p=330157#p330157

[spaceman83]

I've had limited success with that driver and the embedded driver in 

https://github.com/realganfan/r8125-esxi

however I can't get VLANs to work

[Joppefin]

Hello, Did you (or someone else) ever solved that vlan issue, as I'm in same situation with my Asus PN51. Everything works fine as long as there is only one portgroup without vlan id and vm's connected to that.

[jamjak102]

The installation or update is very simple. Just download the driver for your ESXi version (available for ESXi 7.0, 6.7, and 6.5) from VMware . There is also open issue about this: https://github.com/realganfan/r8125-esxi/issues/7 site

[Joppefin]

Is there such driver available from VMware?

[kopfik]

i havent found it. but the github page has the driver updated to 9.007 from 29th of december 2021... Release 9.007.01-1 · realganfan/r8125-esxi · GitHub have you tried that? unfortunately, my odroid h2+ died so i have no device with rtl8125 to test it now...

[Joppefin]

Yep, thats the version I'm using atm. Works very well except those vlans. 😞

There is also open issue about this: https://github.com/realganfan/r8125-esxi/issues/7

[nater1]

RdGameboy,

Do you need a HBA card to get storage on your HW setup? I'm trying to setup a 6.7 on an ASUS Prime Z590-P. I was able to inject the r8125 driver and get NIC support. However, I cannot see any nvme or sata drives with the mobo. I'm wondering if your mobo has storage support or if you use the pci card for raid purposes.

Nate

[yongjie1]

GOOD

[GigaTech]

I know this is old, but it took me WAY TOO LONG to find the solution and this thread helped… Thanks

I found the Realtek 8125 2.5GBe driver here
https://pan.chiphello.com:40272/?dir=/%E9%A9%B1%E5%8A%A8/RTL8125

– Login to vSphere Web UI
– From the left hand side under ‘Navigator’
– Select ‘Host’
– Click ‘Actions’ from the top menu then ‘Services’ >> ‘Enable Secure Shell (SSH)’
– Copy the .vib file to a datastore
– SSH into the ESXi server
– Open CMD
– ‘SSH root@~IP ADDRESS~’
– it will then ask for your root password, type it in
– Run these commands, be sure you have configured a working gateway and DNS server to connect to the internet
– `esxcli software acceptance set –level=CommunitySupported`
– `esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e true -r httpClient`
– `esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e true -r dns`
– Now Install the driver
– `esxcli software vib install -v /vmfs/volumes/datastore2/…/net-r8125-9.006.04-1.vib`
– It should come back with something like:
– Installation Result
– Message: The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the changes to be effective.
– Reboot Required: true
– VIBs Installed: net-r8125-9.006.04-1
– VIBs Removed:

Reboot ESXi and job done 

[OPSvtx]

Many thank to GigaTech . The Driver works on my 6.7 with a Edimax EN-9225TX-E (rtl8125b)

[lbrochard]

Hello,

Any possibility to use it with ESXi8 ?

Thanks.

KP