Which ESXi 8.0 driver for this Broadcom/Qlogic NIC?

[Eudmin]

I am opening a support case on this, but have basically found most of my answers here in the past.  Wondering if someone already knows the answer.

I updated a server from 7.0 to 8.0 yesterday.  It went fine, but it lost the vmnic's that talk to my storage.  They are "NetXtreme II BCM57810".  I assume 8.0 needs a driver for them, but I am striking out searching for one on the site.  I have the latest firmware from Dell installed on the card.

Thanks

[pcgeek2009]

This one should work:

https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/detail.php?deviceCategory=io&productid=41939&deviceCategory=io&details=1&releases=668&keyword=57810&page=1&display_interval=10&sortColumn=Partner&sortOrder=Asc

 

 

[Eudmin]

Thanks, should it work even though when I actually click that download link it takes me to a download that says it's for 7.0 rather than 8.0?

[Eudmin]

Actually, I tried installing it using "esxcli software component apply -d filename.zip" and while the command succeeded it skipped the installation.  So it didn't install.

I am not sure if that means it already has it installed or if it knows it isn't applicable.

[pcgeek2009]

That may indicate no driver update is needed. Did you use the Dell Customized ISO for the upgrade to 8? From looking at Dell's site, the driver is included in that ISO. 

https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=v0yt3

 

 

[Eudmin]

Yes.  I grabbed the Dell Customized ISO from VMWare though.  It only seemed to be come available on 3/12.  

I do have qfl3 1.4.35 installed.  

I am working with Dell tech support as well as VMWare now.  Not sure what is going on.  

[Eudmin]

I used this one to upgrade:

https://customerconnect.vmware.com/downloads/details?downloadGroup=OEM-ESXI80U2-DELLEMC&productId=1345

It worked fine on some C6620 servers, but not on the FC640.

[Eudmin]

Following up on this.  It looks like what was happening is that one of the patch baselines I had attached was installing with the result of uninstalling the qfle3 driver.  

A while back I had created a patch baseline that literally included everything based on some advice I'd read online when I wasn't getting some patches that our local IT security folks wanted me to get.  I had attached that baseline in addition to the Predefined ones to my host.  It had always worked fine in the past as it would only apply things that were applicable and did a great job of ignoring anything non-applicable.  Never seemed to break anything.  

I downloaded the Dell Customized Offline Bundle for 8.0u2 from 3/11/24 and browsed through it to find this .vib file:

VMW_bootbank_qfle3_1.0.67.0-33vmw.802.0.0.22380479.vib

I installed that with "esxcli software vib install -v" and got this message in return:

VIBs Installed: VMW_bootbank_qfle3_1.0.67.0-33vmw.802.0.0.22380479

VIBs Removed: LVO_bootbank_LVO-upgradeclean_2.0.0.7-1OEM.800

The NICs came back after reboot!

After reboot I saw that it was out of compliance for patching, so I remediated and then the NICs were gone again and so was my qfl3e driver.  I manually installed the driver again and again was out of compliance.  The patch it wanted to apply was: "LVO-replacement_2.0.0.7-1OEM.800".  

I don't know what that LVO patch is, but it doesn't like the qfl3e driver.  

Once I removed that patch baseline I'm able to patch all the Predefined baselines and get a server in full compliance with all NICs showing.

[pcgeek2009]

From looking up the version after "LVO", it seems this may have been residual from some Lenovo servers that were once in the environment. So, it seems that if your organization moved from Lenovo to Dell, this should have been removed.