vSphere 5 GA

[danswartz]

Basically what I did. Although I was able to use my unsupported onboard NIC courtesy of chilly's oem.tgz, I ended up getting a pic-e e1000 since I didn't want to have to keep hacking on things.

 

[RESTfulADI]

You can get a Dell branded dual 1GB Intel server nic on Ebay for arount $40.

 

[lopoetve]

How do I got about building my own oem.tgz file? Im looking at some sources now and am pretty confused by the process. Any tips would be greatly appreciated on accomplishing this!

From what I'm hearing, the architecture in 5 is different enough the process may change some. I'm just now starting to dig into the bootbanks myself.

 

[Child of Wonder]

Yeah im thinking the same thing and stopping at my local Frys after work and getting a Intel card.

I've got a pair I'm selling and a pair of Broadcom 5709 dual ports. PM me if you're interested.

 

[Mabrito]

I've got a pair I'm selling and a pair of Broadcom 5709 dual ports. PM me if you're interested.

Thanks, I ended up buying a 10 dollar Trendnet NIC from Frys that works perfectly. I have 5.0 booted up now.

Another question, in the Summary page it shows I have 4 gigs of memory, however, in the Resource Allocation memory, it only shows 2 gigs in the Total Capacity field. Anyone have any idea what this means? Is it normal and im just understanding it wrong, or what?

 

[lightp2]

Exception :
1. In the case where I put in two units of "Same brand same model" Realtek 8169-based add-on NICs into the system, only one NIC is recognized as vmnic. The other one is missing (not available as vmnic)

Summary : If you need assurance for multiple card scenario, it is best to have have mixture of 8168 and 8169 (so you have two). For more, probably broadcom and Intel NICs since they generally can be recognized by ESXi properly even with multiple cards of "same model" installed inside the host.

Hi just an update. Good news.

1. I bought another two "same brand same model" R8169-based cards.
2. They are the same model as earlier two R8169-based cards.
3. I decided to try again, this time with the recently bought cards.
4. this time, one r8169 card from first batch and the one r8169 card from second batch are installed and both recognized by ESXi 5.0.
5. So now I have one r8168(r8111) and two r8169 NIC available as vmnic.

Thanks to VMware for including Realtek support in the ESXi 5.0