VMXNet3 Driver

[wyldkao]

HI All

     I install A SuSE Enterprise Server (SLES 11 SP2) on ESXi 5.1 , which use VMXNET3 NIC instead of intel NIC.

after OS installed, I want to install VMTools to relace default driver.

     All setting I use the setting , exclude kernel path, but I see a information below

The module vmxnet3 has already been installed on this system by another installer or package and will not be modified by this installer. Use the flag --clobber-kernel-module=vmxnet3 to override

I believe SLES use its vmxnet default driver....I want to ask if I still replace it by using vmtools or use SLES default Driver ? and If I use this flag to override, how to verify NIC indeed replace its driver?

thanks

wyld

[rcporto]

The fist post on this thread shows a solution: Re: OpenSUSE 11.4 Tools Install Failure

[JarryG]

Driver for vmxnet3 is part of stable linux-kernel tree for some time (iirc since 2.6.32). If linux-kernel has been compiled with config_vmxnet3=y, you can not replace it (without kernel re-compilation). If this driver was compiled as kernel-module, you can prevent this module from loading and then use vmxnet3-driver from vmware-tools instead...

But honestly, I would not do it. All stable kernel drivers were thoroughly tested by kernel-devs, and are known to work flawlessly (I never had any problem with linux-kernel driver for vmxnet3). If you use 3rd party kernel modules, stability of linux-kernel can not be guaranteed by kernel development team.