VMX3net drivers and VM tools - the dangers

[henry857]

Hi,

I just upgraded to 5.5 ESXi and vCenter and I am now working on some new Windows templates we can deploy from. I was considering using VMX3net NIC's now since we are also moving to a 10Gb environment. I don't mind having to install VM Tools since that is our standard anyway. But I did a test on one of my 2012 R2 VM's and when I uninstalled VM tools, the server was also ripped off the network. Is this normal? So if I have a production SQL server using this driver, I can effectively take its network down by uninstalling VM Tools? What if I have to repair or upgrade VM Tools, with this also take the NIC down?

[Linjo]

VM Tools contains the driver for the nic so it sounds reasonable that the network is disabled if you are uninstalling the driver.

That is not specific for VM Tools but should apply for any Windows Driver.

// Linjo

[henry857]

Yes. But typically you're not able to remove a NIC driver by uninstalling an application from add/remove programs. I guess I will have to do more testing. I would imagine even doing a VM tool repair or upgrade would do the same.

I suppose this isn't a deal breaker, but it doesn't give me a warm fuzzy either knowing I can rip a server from the network through add/remove.

[homerzzz]

I use the vmxnet3 driver on most of our Windows Server VMs and have upgraded vmtool many times. In most cases, the VMs will drop one network ping while the vmxnet3 driver is being upgraded.