USB Network Native Driver for ESXi

• Summary
• Contributors
• Changelog
• Requirements
• Instructions

Summary

Contributors

• Songtao Zhen
• William Lam

Changelog

• Added support for ESXi 8.0 Update 2

• ESXi80U2-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-67561870-component-22416446.zip (md5: bf62144b4e695c3d00cb614a4ecfb2c3)

• Added support for ESXi 8.0 Update 1
• Added support for new DLINK RTL8156 device (0x2001:0xb301)
• Fixed 2.5GbE link speed issue for RTL8156 adapter
• Updated maximum supported USB Network devices to 12 and persists setting over module parameters

• ESXi800-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-64098182-component-21668107.zip (md5: 4a35899f77ce4635d0cfa76a7975504d)
• ESXi80U1-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-64098092-component-21669994.zip (md5: 9c41b5f488ec5cee325207e16b047c10)

• Added support for ESXi 8.0

• ESXi800-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-61054763-component-20826251.zip (md5: 55087041545d2500c1b22deb65107f22)

• Added support for ESXi 7.0 Update 3c and later
• Resolve a PSOD issue

• ESXi703-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-55634242-component-19849370.zip (md5: 2db2ab5341bd45487e322c7e3d8f7e30)

• Added support for ESXi 7.0 Update 3, 3a & 3b
• Added support for VID: 0x0b05/PID: 0x1976 and VID: 0x1A56/PID: 0x3100
• Resolve power management issue on xHCI
• Disable USB bus scanning (usbBusFullScanOnBootEnabled=0) by default, which prevents PSOD for customers using multiple USB NICs

• ESXi703-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-51233328-component-18902399.zip (md5: 067c7003cd00fcb861c3910cac430506)

• Added support for ESXi 7.0 Update 2
• Disable USB bus scanning (usbBusFullScanOnBootEnabled=0) by default, which prevents PSOD for customers using multiple USB NICs

• ESXi702-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-47140841-component-18150468.zip

• Added support for ESXi 7.0 Update 1
• USB NIC Bindings are now automatically persistent
• 5GbE USB NICs now properly show Full vs Half Duplex

• ESXi701-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-40599856-component-17078334.zip

• Add support for Aquantia and Trendnet AQC111U (0xe05a:0x20f4) (see Requirements for more details)
• Add support for Realtek RTL8153 (0x045e:0x07c6) (see Requirements for more details)
• Add support for Realtek RTL8156 (0x0bda:0x8156) (see Requirements for more details)
• Support for persistent VMkernel to USB NIC MAC Address mappings (see Instructions for details)
• Simplified USB NIC persistency (see Instructions for details)
• Resolved link speed issue for RTL8153 chipsets

• ESXi700-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-39035884-component-16770668.zip
• ESXi670-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-39203948-offline_bundle-16780994.zip
• ESXi650-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-39176435-offline_bundle-16775917.zip

• Added support for ESXi 7.0

• ESXi700-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-34491022-component-15873236.zip

• Add SuperMicro/Insyde Software Corp USB Devices in the supported list
• Resolved invalid speed reporting for some quick devices by using the default speed

• ESXi670-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-33242987-offline_bundle-15615590.zip
• ESXi650-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-33268102-offline_bundle-15620342.zip

• Resolved USB device detection issue on Intel XHCI controller
• Resolved packet record issue for ASIX USB network adapters

• ESXi670-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-30899283-offline_bundle-15188556.zip
• ESXi650-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-30940032-offline_bundle-15188510.zip

• Added support for Aquantia Multi-Gig (1G/2.5G/5G) USB network adapter (see Requirements for more details)
• Added support for Auto Speed/Connection detection for RTL8153/RTL8152 chipsets

• ESXi670-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-28903484-offline_bundle-14722970.zip
• ESXi650-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-28903792-offline_bundle-14722993.zip

• Added support for 9 additional USB NIC devices including USB 2.0 RTL8152 & TPLINK (see Requirements for complete list)
• Added support for Jumbo Frames (up to 4K) for RTL8153 & AX88179

• ESXi670-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-24524132-offline_bundle-13958648.zip
• ESXi650-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-24599816-offline_bundle-13964320.zip

• ESXi670-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-20124247-offline_bundle-11613968
• ESXi650-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-20123976-offline_bundle-11613344

Requirements

Instructions

• See this blog post for creating custom ESXi ISO or Image Profile using vSphere Lifecycle Manager

• Step 1 - Download the ZIP file for the specific version of your ESXi host and upload to ESXi host using SCP or Datastore Browser
• Step 2 - Place the ESXi host into Maintenance Mode using the vSphere UI or CLI (e.g. esxcli system maintenanceMode set -e true)
• Step 3 - Install the ESXi Offline Bundle (6.5/6.7) or Component (7.0)

For (7.0+) - Run the following command on ESXi Shell to install ESXi Component:

esxcli software component apply -d /path/to/the component zip

For (6.5/6.7) - Run the following command on ESXi Shell to install ESXi Offline Bundle:

esxcli software vib install -d /path/to/the offline bundle zip

• Step 4 - Plug-in the USB NIC and reboot for the change to go into effect. Once the host has rebooted, ESXi should automatically pickup and claim the USB NIC (e.g. vusb0)

Multiple USB NIC Bindings

Persisting USB NIC Bindings

esxcli system module parameters set -p "usbBusFullScanOnBootEnabled=1" -m vmkusb_nic_fling

    vusb0_status=$(esxcli network nic get -n vusb0 | grep 'Link Status' | awk '{print $NF}')
    count=0
    while [[ $count -lt 20 && "${vusb0_status}" != "Up" ]]
    do
        sleep 10
        count=$(( $count + 1 ))
        vusb0_status=$(esxcli network nic get -n vusb0 | grep 'Link Status' | awk '{print $NF}')
    done

    esxcfg-vswitch -R

    VDS_0_NAME=vDS
    VDS_0_PORT_ID=10
    VDS_1_NAME=vDS-NSX
    VDS_1_PORT_ID=2

    vusb0_status=$(esxcli network nic get -n vusb0 | grep 'Link Status' | awk '{print "v0:" $NF}') && vusb1_status=$(esxcli network nic get -n vusb1 | grep 'Link Status' | awk '{print "v1:" $NF}')
    count=0
    while [[ $count -lt 40 ]] && [[ "${vusb0_status}" != "v0:Up" || "${vusb1_status}" != "v1:Up" ]]
    do
        sleep 5
        count=$(( $count + 1 ))
        vusb0_status=$(esxcli network nic get -n vusb0 | grep 'Link Status' | awk '{print "v0:" $NF}') && vusb1_status=$(esxcli network nic get -n vusb1 | grep 'Link Status' | awk '{print "v1:" $NF}')
    done

    if [ "${vusb0_status}" = "v0:Up" ]; then
        esxcfg-vswitch -P vusb0 -V ${VDS_0_PORT_ID} ${VDS_0_NAME}
    fi

    if [ "${vusb1_status}" = "v1:Up" ]; then
        esxcfg-vswitch -P vusb1 -V ${VDS_1_PORT_ID} ${VDS_1_NAME}
    fi

Persisting VMkernel to USB NIC mappings

esxcli system module parameters set -p "vusb0_mac=70:88:6b:85:c0:53 vusb1_mac=58:ef:68:7f:2b:f7" -m vmkusb_nic_fling