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Replying to:
pkvmw
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi @mmbabjiml,

Realtek is not developing drivers for the ESXi platform, so those cards cannot be used with ESXi unfortunately.

There were 3rd-party-crafted Linux drivers for ESXi back in the vSphere 6.x days, but the legacy vmklinux (allowing to use Linux drivers on ESXi) was deprecated longer time ago and removed in vSphere 7.0.

You might be better of getting some (used) Intel NIC, which do usually work with ESXi. You can check the HCL for any working models and maybe get hands on a cheap, working NIC.

Hi @supergsm,

not sure on which facts this is based on. The fact is, that hardware vendors are responsible for developing drivers and firmware for their own hardware and also respectively for platforms they decide to support. As of today, Realtek is not developing drivers for ESXi nor does certify them with us.

If you want Realtek drivers, please reach out to the hardware vendor Realtek.