No network adapters found - HPE ML350 Gen10 ESXi 6.5.0 installer

[southernsi]

Hi,

Our brand new ML350 Gen10 is on the HCL (which is why we got that one). Yet, starting the installtion with the ESXi-6.5.0 installer downloaded from my.vmware.com returns "No Network Adapters found".

lspci -v | grep "Class 0200" -B 1

returns all four built-in Intel cards.

The boot image (installer) has the i40en drivers on board.

I found online a few sources (all referring to Dell) about reverting to i40e drivers. Is this neccessary with our ML350 as well? HPE doesn't provide an ESXi custom installer as Dell does. May I use the Dell installer? If not how, do I replace the "i40en.v00" on the installing USB pen drive with a working one, e.g. i40e ? Downloading the .vib file from HPE and renaming this to eiter i40en.v00 or i40e.v00? How/where are these file called from/referenced?

Cheers,

Stefan

[daphnissov]

HPE doesn't provide an ESXi custom installer as Dell does.

...but they do.

Use the HPE image and it should contain those drivers necessary.

[southernsi]

... indeed. Thank you. Eventhough I crawled the HP website for any information about this I didn't think to search VMware for this image.

Though, starting the ML350 Gen10 with this image results in

No network adapters were detected. Either no network adapters are physically connected to the system, or a suitable driver could not be located. A third party driver might be required.
Ensure that there is at least one network adapter physically connected to the system before attempting installation. If the problem persist, consult the VMware Knowledge Base.
FSS 6751: Failed to open file 'hpilo-d0ccb0'; Requested flags 0x5, world 68868 [smad], (Existing flags 0x5, world 68868 [smad]):Busy

Where to from here? Any ideas?

Thanks.

[daphnissov]

Are you using UEFI mode for this server?

[southernsi]

Good question. I presume so, But I am not sure. I started the server booting the virtual iso image attached via iLO. How can I check the UEFI mode?

[southernsi]

The Error "No Network Adapters found" shows after booting in BIOS mode.

in UEFI mode it doesn't seem to boot into the .iso image as virtuall media or at least does not show the boot menu let alone ESXi installer progress.

[southernsi]

okay, managed to boot from a USB key in UEFI mode. The problem still persists though.

Any ideas?

[southernsi]

That's status quo.

The file I used for the ISO is the HP Custom build VMware-ESXi-6.5.0-5310538-HPE-650.10.1.5.20-Oct2017

[daphnissov]

What model NIC do you have in this thing anyway?

[southernsi]

HPE Ethernet 1GB 4-port 369i (embedded)

Firmware: 1.1752.0

[daphnissov]

Try the HPE customized ISO which was just released today here: https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?downloadGroup=OEM-ESXI65U1-HPE&productId=614

See also the HPE advisory here: https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-a00029615en_us&docLocale=en_US

[southernsi]

Thank you!

I hadn't seen the newly released build.

Interesting commend in the advisory section. I did indeed use the HPE custom build before - still facing the very same error.

With the new build:

downloaded the ISO. Mounted it as virtual CDROM via iLO. Booted in UEFI mode. --> Same error.

Interestingly my iLO shows the adapter's status as "unknown".

I don't have any cables attached to the NICs jsut yet, as the server is currently on the workbench for setup. I that required to proceed with the installation?