Intel 82579LM and 82579V

IT WORKS!!!

I officially have ESXi 5.0 now running on this DQ67EP MINI-ITX board!!!

I have a real treat in store for everyone as soon as I finish configuring ESXi.

Thank you so much Chilly!

I did notice a single red line error code flashed by when it loaded the NIC drivers, but it still let me install no sweat!

Outstanding job man...

Stay tuned for more.
 
This is great. Can't wait to try it when I get home. I just added another host to my lab and need the onboard Intel Nic to work properly!
 
Here's a preview of what I've been working on.

This is what powers ESXi 5.0.

http://imgur.com/a/95amP

Mini-Datacenter in the palm of my hand.

(As soon as I get a chance to get all settled I will have a full "How-To" on building a powerful Whitebox ESXi 5.0 Mini-ITX server for under $600 using all Windows tools with many thanks to Chilly and Peetz.)
 
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Here's a preview of what I've been working on.

This is what powers ESXi 5.0.

http://imgur.com/a/95amP

Mini-Datacenter in the palm of my hand.

(As soon as I get a chance to get all settled I will have a full "How-To" on building a powerful Whitebox ESXi 5.0 Mini-ITX server for under $600 using all Windows tools with many thanks to Chilly and Peetz.)

That's awesome! Looking forward to see how that all turns out for you.

Back on topic, thank you and congratulations to Chilly! Can't wait to try this out.
 
Chilly,

Great work. I can confirm that the driver is working fine on my Intel DQ67OW with onboard Intel 82579LM Gigabit Ethernet Controller in combination with an Intel Core i5-2500. ;)

The first boot after the install it showed only 10Mbit speed though, but after a reboot, it was changed to 1Gbit.

Thanks

Sam
 
Works great Chilly. Just configured for my Asus Gene-Z! Nice work!
 
I have a Gene-Z as well. Good to know!

Again, many praises for pumping those out so quick Chilly thanks!

And of course thanks to Peetz for not only creating the app, but coming up with the standard to load it!

Still stoked this works. :)
 
Anyone else having an issue enabling HA in their cluster after you apply this to the ESXi 5.x ISO and use it for your install?
 
This shouldn't be related. The HA (or FDM) agent is deployed to the hosts by vCenter when you enable HA/FDM on the cluster. So, it is not part of the install ISO.

For troubleshooting FDM see here: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2004429

- Andreas

Anyone else having an issue enabling HA in their cluster after you apply this to the ESXi 5.x ISO and use it for your install?
 
There is still an HA or FDM agent that gets installed on the ESXi host. It can't install..that is the problem. It could very well have to do with the ESXi install. I can browse the mobfdm on the working host with vanilla ESXi 5 install, but with the customized ESXi 5 install with the Intel driver...having issues. I'm going to reinstall vanilla 5 to make sure that it's not anything else. I'll report back. Should only take 10 minutes.


UPDATE:
That's exactly what it was. Vanilla ESXi 5 works fine. Not sure why HA is not working. I'll have to look at what the customizer is doing...don't have time right now though.

Chilly, any thoughts?
 
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Wait, Vader, you got this running on your Gene-Z?

I thought the Z68 chipset didn't support vt-d. It still installed?
 
@dirtywilly vt-d is for pass-through, its not needed and rarely used.

@Vader: It shouldn't be related to the driver, but I'll run a few tests here and see if I can re-create the issue. At what percentage does the HA install fail?
 
Vader,

here is something to try for you:
I'm currently working on a new version of my ESXi-Customizer script that will include a new utility called TGZ2VIB5. This will convert an oem.tgz file (like Chilly's) into a VIB file.
This is the "official" VMware software package format.
I am not yet ready to release that, but I have already created a VIB version of Chilly's driver with it that you can donwload here:
http://files.v-front.de/net-e1001e-1.0.0.x86_64.vib

Please try the following:
1. Install your machine(s) with the vanilla ESXi 5.0 ISO.
2. Log on to the console (or via ssh) of one of the machines and install the vib file by using the following commands:
esxcli software acceptance set --level=CommunitySupported
esxcli software vib install -v http://files.v-front.de/net-e1001e-1.0.0.x86_64.vib
3. reboot, configure all NICs, and try to enable FDM then

The above install command assumes that the ESXi host has direct internet access to download the file. If this is not the case you need to copy the vib file to a local datastore and use the path to the file instead of the URL.

Let me know how this goes ...

- Andreas

There is still an HA or FDM agent that gets installed on the ESXi host. It can't install..that is the problem. It could very well have to do with the ESXi install. I can browse the mobfdm on the working host with vanilla ESXi 5 install, but with the customized ESXi 5 install with the Intel driver...having issues. I'm going to reinstall vanilla 5 to make sure that it's not anything else. I'll report back. Should only take 10 minutes.


UPDATE:
That's exactly what it was. Vanilla ESXi 5 works fine. Not sure why HA is not working. I'll have to look at what the customizer is doing...don't have time right now though.

Chilly, any thoughts?
 
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Used the tool last night to integrate the new file and re-imaged by USB stick.

Got it up and running on lunch today using the 82579V as the management network. I obviously haven't hit it with any kind of serious data throughput yet. Likely won't be able to do much of that for a while, but it is at least connected without issue :)
 
peetz..i'm getting an error when running the command for the software install. If found that the the command had the vib and install switched, should be the other way around..so this:

esxcli software vib install -v http://files.v-front.de/net-e1001e-1.0.0.x86_64.vib


Ran it and it just sat there..so I waited like 15 minutes..reset the host and lost all config for everything on the host??

Yeah..figured out that it need to be in maitenance mode..just don't why I lost the config..very strage...
 
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Hmmm, I guess the lost config is a result of the hard reset.
The install command should not take that long. I just tried that again and it took 30 seconds or so. Maybe the download of the file takes very long in your case or does not work at all. Can you try to copy the file to a local datastore and install this local copy?
 
I'm reconfiguring now and will try it again. There is no reason why I should'nt be able to access the file from these hosts right now. Updates to follow.

Ok..this is what I get:

[VibDownloadError]
('http://files.v-front.de/net-e1001e-1.0.0.x86_64.vib', '', '[Errno 4] IOError: <urlopen error [Errno 97] Address family not supported by protocol>')
url = http://files.v-front.de/net-e1001e-1.0.0.x86_64.vib
Please refer to the log file for more details.
 
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Never seen that ...
Just a guess: Have you enabled IPv6 on the host? If yes, try disabling it.

I'm reconfiguring now and will try it again. There is no reason why I should'nt be able to access the file from these hosts right now. Updates to follow.

Ok..this is what I get:

[VibDownloadError]
('http://files.v-front.de/net-e1001e-1.0.0.x86_64.vib', '', '[Errno 4] IOError: <urlopen error [Errno 97] Address family not supported by protocol>')
url = http://files.v-front.de/net-e1001e-1.0.0.x86_64.vib
Please refer to the log file for more details.
 
I can get out to the internet, pinged several sites. IPv6 is not enabled...hmmm. Do you know the specific log file it's referring to see if I can look at the details?
 
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I just figured I'd go ahead and try it this second way as well, and I was able to install the .vib driver file fine. It took about 2 minutes.

Next, I'll likely re-image my USB stick with a vanilla ISO and then install the .vib. I honestly don't care whatsoever for HA, but I'd like to avoid whatever changes might be happening here that are preventing it.

Plus if it works, it rules out the .vib as being the issue in your case.
 
Peetz,

Can I use this VIB file in some form to install ESXi 5.0?

I can't install the vanilla ESXi 5.0 without Chilly's driver; the onboard NIC is all I have in there.

VMware mentions using the VIB, but you still have to create a custom ISO using their Image Builder tools.

Is there a way to install vanilla, should I use your custom VIB with their image builder, or is there another method?

Vader,

Please try the following:
1. Install your machine(s) with the vanilla ESXi 5.0 ISO.
2. Log on to the console (or via ssh) of one of the machines and install the vib file by using the following commands:
esxcli software acceptance set --level=CommunitySupported
esxcli software vib install -v http://files.v-front.de/net-e1001e-1.0.0.x86_64.vib
3. reboot, configure all NICs, and try to enable FDM then
 
@DirtyWilly

you have these options:
- You can build a custom ISO by applying either the oem.tgz or the VIB file to the vanilla ISO with ESXi-Customizer
- With the VIB file only you can create a custom ISO "the official way" using VMware's Image Builder PowerCLI plug-in
- When you have a host already up and running (because it also has another NIC that is supported out-of-the-box) then you can also install the VIB file to the running system by using the esxcli commands that Vader is trying.

I'm not aware of any other options ...

- Andreas

Peetz,

Can I use this VIB file in some form to install ESXi 5.0?

I can't install the vanilla ESXi 5.0 without Chilly's driver; the onboard NIC is all I have in there.

VMware mentions using the VIB, but you still have to create a custom ISO using their Image Builder tools.

Is there a way to install vanilla, should I use your custom VIB with their image builder, or is there another method?
 
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@Vader,

the log file to check is
/var/log/esxupdate.log

the error "Address family not supported by protocol" is very unusual and points to a more basic networking problem.
According to http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1003490 this could be cause by a corrupt /etc/hosts file, but I would suggest that you reinstall the machine from scratch again to rule out any corruption that might have happened due to the hard reset.

- Andreas
 
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@Vader,

the log file to check is
/var/log/esxupdate.log

the error "Address family not supported by protocol" is very unusual and points to a more basic networking problem.
According to http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1003490 this could be cause by a corrupt /etc/hosts file, but I would suggest that you reinstall the machine from scratch again to rule out any corruption that might have happened due to the hard reset.



Will try this tonight. I'll report back my findings.
 
-When you have a host already up and running (because it also has another NIC that is supported out-of-the-box) then you can also install the VIB file to the running system by using the esxcli commands that Vader is trying.

I can confirm that this works fine. Installed plan ESXi file, set one of my add-in Intel cards to management, ran the commands back on page 5, rebooted, and I was able to set the onboard 82579V as my management network, and I can connect to it fine.
 
Vader,

just another thought ...:
Did you by chance enable "Lockdown mode" when adding the host to vCenter?
This will prevent the HA agent from being installed.

Let us know the results of further testing. I really like to rule out ESXi-Customizer having a bad influence here.

I did a quick test myself and used an ESXi 5.0 ISO that was produced by ESXi-customizer (by adding Chilly's oem.tgz) to install an ESXi machine inside VMware Workstation 8. I could enable HA on this machne without any problems. Of course this is not the same setup, because Chilly's driver is installed but not really being used in this scenario, but I can't think of a reason why his should make a difference.

Thanks
Andreas

Anyone else having an issue enabling HA in their cluster after you apply this to the ESXi 5.x ISO and use it for your install?
 
@Vader - I was able to complete some tests using peetz vib version of my driver. Here's what I did;

  1. Installed ESXi 5.0 from a original untouched ISO
  2. Put it into Maintenance Mode
  3. Installed my E1001E driver using peetz provided vib via esxcli(I had no issues here)
  4. Rebooted
  5. Configured everything(SAN, iSCSI bindings, networking, VLANs, etc) the way I like it
  6. Added to a HA and DRS Cluster
  7. Set-up a small CentOS Linux VM
  8. Tested HA by hard powering off the Host which the VM was on
  9. Brought host back and vMotion'ed VM back

I have backed up the config and am going to test a Custom ISO generated by peetz tool now, but I'm suspecting from peetz test above that I'll get similar results.

HA installed fine, and is working without issue. I`m going to be running some heavy throughput tests on it now to stress the drivers, I'll report back after I get some results, but thus far they are looking decent.

@peetz - Thanks for all your help in this thread :D
 
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I didn't have the time to test it last night....but maybe it's the Gene-Z. I don't want to speculate without further testing. I'll have time this weekend for sure.

Believe me, I want this to work!...lol.:) Hopefully it's just a fluke.

Update:

Everything went fine using peetz method. Installed and added to Cluster with zero issues. I actually want to go back and try to use the esxicustomizer just to make sure everthing works.
 
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I didn't have the time to test it last night....but maybe it's the Gene-Z. I don't want to speculate without further testing. I'll have time this weekend for sure.

Believe me, I want this to work!...lol.:) Hopefully it's just a fluke.

Shoot me an PM with a GTalk, MSN Messenger, or w/e. Whenever you have some time, we can look at the issue together, maybe remote in, and take a look.
 
Hello all,

I have a little problem, maybe you guys can help. I made a usb stick with unetbootin with the ESXi 5 custom made with the 82579LM driver. Everything is OK until i get to 45% of the installer. It says ERRNO 2 and one file missing and the installer halts. Does anybody encountered this? Please help. I have an Intel S1200BTL motherboard, ESXi is installed on a Corsair USB drive.
 
Hi andymatei,

I cannot tell you how to fix that, but there is an alternative way to get ESXi 5.0 installed on your USB key drive:

Download the free VMware Player from VMware (if you have Workstation 8 installed you can also use that), and create a new ESXi 5.0 VM with it by pointing to the customized ESXi 5.0 ISO. Also attach your ESXi key drive to this VM, and then install ESXi 5.0 inside the VM and choose the USB drive as installation target. Once the installation has finished, disconnect the USB key drive and connect it to the target machine.

Once it has booted from the USB key (and hopefully detected all your hardware), I recommend doing a "Reset System Configuration" from the DCUI (F2) menu to clear any devices that it detected on the previous virtual hardware.

- Andreas
 
OK, it did not work with injecting the .vib driver in the ISO. So i installed ESXi 5 and then inject the driver with the console commands. I would really like it to work with building a custom ISO file. The error was encountered when installer was at 45% and it said:

ERRNO 2 file not found /tardisks/net-e100.v02

The net-e100.v02 is not in the original ISO just net-e100.v01. I use version 2.6 of the ESXi ISO Customiser. Please help.

Thanks,
Andy
 
Okay, may be a bug in ESXi-Customizer. I will try to reproduce and fix that ...

In the meantime add the oem.tgz version of Chilly's driver to the ISO (instead of the VIB version). Get it here: http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1038022084&postcount=80.

- Andreas

Update: Okay, I can reproduce that, and I have an idea what's going wrong here ... However, the workaround with applying the oem.tgz version will work for you!

Update: This Bug is fixed in Version 2.6.1, now available!

OK, it did not work with injecting the .vib driver in the ISO. So i installed ESXi 5 and then inject the driver with the console commands. I would really like it to work with building a custom ISO file. The error was encountered when installer was at 45% and it said:

ERRNO 2 file not found /tardisks/net-e100.v02

The net-e100.v02 is not in the original ISO just net-e100.v01. I use version 2.6 of the ESXi ISO Customiser. Please help.

Thanks,
Andy
 
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I injected the driver in .tgz form, still did not work. The only way it did work was injecting it after installation of a vanilla .iso

Anyway, got it to work now and i'm very happy as the installation of esxi was not my main focus, i just wanted an infrastructure so i can study for certification exams. Thanks a lot for all your help and if i can be of any service for testing don't hesitate to say so.
 
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