Adding NIC drivers post ESXi 5 installation?

Angry

Angry

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 27, 2006
Messages
482
Hey guys, Im tooling with ESXi 5 on a test bed to get an idea of how Im going to move over to it from VMWare workstation, and Ive ran into an issue.

The onboard NIC for the GA-890GPA-UD3H board that Im using is detected and working, however when trying to add another Realtek NIC, an 8139D NIC that I use for my DD-wrt X86 boxs it does not detect them.
Some digging around has shown that it isnt supported out of the box.

I found this:
http://www.vmguru.nl/wordpress/2010/03/add-additional-drivers-to-esxi/
On injecting drivers into ESXi, now my issue is locating the drivers for the 8139 Realtek card....

Where will I find those? Realteks website doesnt list any for Linux saying its built into the kernal....

Is there another way to add NIC drivers to ESXi?
 
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Okay, So say you install a supported NIC post install.
Is there a way to get ESXi to detect the new NIC without reinstalling ESXi?

I ended up finding a supported NIC, however to get it to detect it, I had to fully reinstall ESXi, which was fine as I hadnt loaded much of anything, but in the future, if I add another NIC or swap NICs, or add a storage controller.......Id like to know how to get it to detect the new hardware.

....Or is it supposed to do so, automatically?
 
It should just pick up any additions without having to reinstall. Which version of ESXi? What was the NIC?
 
Angry said:
Its ESXi 5.0, and the NIC is a PCI Realtek 8169.
The onboard is Realtek 8168.

Ill be picking up a couple of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833106033
Along with a mobo that supports IOMMU, to pass them through to the DD-wrt x86 VM.
Click to expand...

if you have any extra pci-e 4X or greater, since dual 1Gb needs pci-e 4X :
check on 3bay fo a used r intel dual 1Gb or broadcom dual 1Gb.

I bought broadcom dual 1Gb for $35... the last time I check on friday, around ~$50 for intel dual 1Gb .

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mine is gigabyte 990FX-UD5 with FX4100, where has 16X, 8X, 8X, 4X 4X, and 1X.
 
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Ill definitely pick up some broadcom cards if they are compitble with ESXi for added NIC ports, but Ill have to get the NICs in the newegg link above as they are the only ones Ive been able to confirm that DD-wrt x86 recognizes.
 
^^^
Yes...................
running on my esx 4.1 with dual NIC :)

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if you need to use pass-through to that NIC card:
could be ok on dd-wrt ( please check dd-wrt modules) or you need to compile
BCM570X works on open-wrt X86 :), the kernel bnx...module is already compiled (not in the kernel) as a module. I have to copy the broadcom firmware files to make it works ( as I remember).

on Intel (dual) NIC, you do not need any firmware (please correct me :)).


if you need to stick with Intel, there are many dual Intel NIC on 3bay, which the price is higher than Broadcam dual NIC as I observed
 
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