Problems Loading 10G intel x540-T2 Drivers

[slackowski]

Hey Guys,

I am having issues loading drivers for Intel x540-T2 onto my ESXi server.

I looked around and checked the CD that it came with and im only seeing the drivers for Linux but not sure how to get them loaded.

Any input on this would help a lot.

Thank You.

[memaad]

Hi,

If it is ESXi 5.X , here is kb http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2005205

For ESX 4.X  here is KB http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1032936

Regards

Mohammed

[MKguy]

And this is the most recent ixgbe driver for your NIC:

https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?downloadGroup=DT-ESXI50-INTEL-IXGBE-31132&productId=285

[slackowski]

And would i have to use the image builder to load the drivers trough? or can i just move .zip over to the esxi and do the install locally ?

[MKguy]

You don't need to re-install the host with an updated image to use the newer driver.

You can update the driver on your existing host via Update Manager, local CLI or rCLI as described in the already posted http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2005205.

So the easiest way would be to just upload the offline bundle zip (in side the outer download zip) to you host and then run esxcli software vib update -d /path/offline-bundle.zip (update instead of install), and reboot.

If you want to incorporate the driver in the installation image already, you can use this fine tool:

http://www.v-front.de/p/esxi5-community-packaging-tools.html

[slackowski]

I will try this in the lab right now and update you once i have it up and running. In the meantime i loaded esxi 5.1 and was able to see the nic so that asured me that it was a driver issue. I am curently reloading it back to 5.0 and will load the driver in to see if it picks up the card.

Thanks

[slackowski]

Getting some errors during the update that i put in below. Any ideas what may be causing this ?

~ # ls

altbootbank                              lib                                      productLocker                            usr

bin                                      lib32                                    sbin                                     var

bootbank                                 lib64                                    scratch                                  vmfs

dev                                      locker                                   store                                    vmimages

etc                                      opt                                      tardisks                                 vmupgrade

ixgbe-3.11.32-offline_bundle-870840.zip  proc                                     tmp

~ #

~ #

~ # esxcli software vib update -d ixgbe-3.11.32-offline_bundle-870840.zip 

[MetadataDownloadError]

Could not download from depot at zip:/var/log/vmware/ixgbe-3.11.32-offline_bundle-870840.zip?index.xml, skipping (('zip:/var/log/vmware/ixgbe-3.11.32-offline_bundle-870840.zip?index.xml', '', "Error extracting index.xml from /var/log/vmware/ixgbe-3.11.32-offline_bundle-870840.zip: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/var/log/vmware/ixgbe-3.11.32-offline_bundle-870840.zip'"))

        url = zip:/var/log/vmware/ixgbe-3.11.32-offline_bundle-870840.zip?index.xml

Please refer to the log file for more details.

~ #

[memaad]

Hi ,

You have note specified full path  of driver file.

It should be something like this  esxcli software vib update -d   /tmp/ixgbe-3.11.32-offline_bundle-870840.zip

Here is KB for it http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2015834

Regard

Mohammed

[slackowski]

I copied the file directly to the root and ran the command from there. I dont think i need to specify the path....

[memaad]

Hi ,

If you  type " ls -ltrh", then do you see  driver file.

Regards

Mohammed

[slackowski]

I can see the offlinebundle.zip there

~ # ls -ltrh

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           18 Aug 19  2011 vmupgrade -> /locker/vmupgrade/

drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          512 Dec 15 17:08 vmimages

drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          512 Dec 15 17:08 vmfs

drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          512 Dec 15 17:08 usr

drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          512 Dec 15 17:08 opt

drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          512 Dec 15 17:08 lib64

drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          512 Dec 15 17:08 lib32

drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          512 Dec 15 17:08 lib

drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          512 Dec 15 17:08 bin

drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          512 Dec 15 17:09 var

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           49 Dec 15 17:09 scratch -> /vmfs/volumes/50ccacf9-cb413d4e-c43d-00219b8ab850

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           23 Dec 15 17:09 productLocker -> /locker/packages/5.0.0/

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            6 Dec 15 17:09 locker -> /store

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           49 Dec 15 17:09 store -> /vmfs/volumes/50ccace1-9ce04db5-6be7-00219b8ab850

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           49 Dec 15 17:09 bootbank -> /vmfs/volumes/1ba79379-d725d756-4df7-4d7716d49b39

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           49 Dec 15 17:09 altbootbank -> /vmfs/volumes/9b677f72-761f3fbd-050f-0c7059897f37

drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          512 Dec 15 17:09 sbin

drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          512 Dec 15 17:14 tardisks

drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          512 Dec 15 17:16 etc

-rw-r--r--    1 root     root       130.2k Dec 15 17:17 ixgbe-3.11.32-offline_bundle-870840.zip

drwxrwxrwt    1 root     root          512 Dec 15 17:37 tmp

drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       128.0k Dec 15 17:40 proc

drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          512 Dec 15 17:40 dev

~ # pwd

/

~ #

[memaad]

Hi,

Can move that  driver to any of the datastore and  give complete path while running the command to  driver installation.

Regards

Mohammed

[slackowski]

move it in to store/ for example ?

[memaad]

Move it to  /vmfs/volume/Datastore_name/ driverfile.zip.

Regards

Mohammed

[slackowski]

That worked really well, i had no idea that the driver needed to be on the datastore and i kept running it from the disk that the esxi was installed on.

thnk you