ESXi

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  • 1.  add pNIC after ESXi 5 installation

    Posted Oct 06, 2011 03:24 AM

    Hi,

    Can we add physical NIC to ESXi Server after we have installed ESXi 5 to the box? Will ESXi 5 detect the new physical NICs?

    I have a home lab at home with a beefy server which I have VMware workstation 8 installed on it.

    I have created 7 VMs to be as my ESXi Servers, one DC and one vCenter Server (All VMs)

    My original configuration for ESXi VMs was to have 8 NICs in them to do some testing. (specially dVS)

    after the 4th ESXi VM I forgot to add NIC Cards while I was creating the VM and installed ESXi with only 1 nic card.

    After adding the esxi to my vcenter I recognized my mistake. So I shutdown the ESXi and added 7 more NICs.

    My assumption was after rebooting the ESXi, the new NICs will be detected. But apparently not.

    I know that I haven't hit any maximums in my VMware workstation 8 because in ESXi6 and ESXi7 I remembered to add NIC Cards before the installation and I can see them in my vCenter Server.

    What am I missing? Is it because the ESXi are nested or even in Physical environment if I add NICs, they will not be detected after the reboot?

    I am pretty sure this was not the case in vSphere 4.

    Thanks



  • 2.  RE: add pNIC after ESXi 5 installation
    Best Answer

    Posted Oct 06, 2011 07:10 AM

    Hi

    maybe insted E1000 vNIC you've added VMXNET card ? I have this same setup like yours and every time when I add new vNIC to my virtual ESXi discovers new adapter



  • 3.  RE: add pNIC after ESXi 5 installation

    Posted Oct 06, 2011 02:20 PM
    @ Artur - You are right.
    Since these VMs are Shared I don't see Network type through the GUI in VMware workstation.
    So when I went to the vmx file I noticed the difference.
    The new NICs didn't have this line:
    ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"
    So I had to add the line and change the ethernet# for each NIC.
    And that solved the problem.
    Thanks a lot.


  • 4.  RE: add pNIC after ESXi 5 installation

    Posted Oct 06, 2011 07:20 AM

    Add a new NIC E1000 and do vmtools installation once again.. you should be able to see those NIC there..



  • 5.  RE: add pNIC after ESXi 5 installation

    Posted Oct 06, 2011 07:26 AM

    Dharshan wrote:

    Add a new NIC E1000 and do vmtools installation once again.. you should be able to see those NIC there..

    VMware tools on ESXi server ?



  • 6.  RE: add pNIC after ESXi 5 installation

    Posted Oct 06, 2011 07:49 AM

    Good Question appericated....

    ESXi will have its own drivers - But still we can install the drivers for some special hardware for which the driver is not bundled with ISO..

    I will check that..