: Install the NIC Driver on ESXi
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Install the NIC Driver on ESXi

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Install the NIC Driver on ESXi

For the best performance, use SR-IOV with Intel 10GB network interfaces which requires the ixgbe 4.4.1 driver to support multiple queues for each interface.
  1. Obtain a list of network interfaces on the ESXi host.
    1. Log in to the ESXi host CLI.
    2. Use the following command to return a list of network interfaces:
      $ esxcli network nic list
  2. Determine the driver version for a particular interface.
    You can use either ethtool or esxcli to determine the currently-installed driver version. The following example uses vNIC4 and returns driver version 3.21.6.
    • ethtool—ethtool -l <nic-name>
      $ ethtool -I vNIC4 
      driver: ixgbe 
      version: 3.21.6iov 
      firmware-version: 0x80000389  
      bus-info: 0000:04:00.0 
    • esxcli—esxcli network nic get -n <nic-name>
      $  esxcli network nic get -n vNIC4 
         Advertised Auto Negotiation: true 
         Advertised Link Modes:  
         Auto Negotiation: true 
         Cable Type:  
         Current Message Level: 7 
         Driver Info:  
               Bus Info: 0000:04:00.0 
               Driver: ixgbe 
               Firmware Version: 0x80000389 
               Version: 3.21.6iov 
         Link Detected: false 
         Link Status: Down  
         Name: vNIC4 
         PHYAddress: 0 
         Pause Autonegotiate: true 
         Pause RX: true 
         Pause TX: true 
         Supported Ports: FIBRE 
         Supports Auto Negotiation: true 
         Supports Pause: true 
         Supports Wakeon: false 
         Transceiver: external 
         Wakeon: None 
  3. Install the new driver.
    1. Download the ixgbe 4.4.1 driver from the VMware website. Extract the contents to a local directory and find the .zip or .vib files for your driver.
    2. Create a new folder in your ESXi host datastore.
    3. Copy the local .zip or .vib file you extracted to the new folder in your ESXi host datastore.
    4. Enable maintenance mode on the ESXi host.
    5. Use one of the following commands to install the new driver, using -d for .zip files, or -v for .vib files.
      • $ esxcli software vib install -d <path to driver .zip file>
      • $ esxcli software vib install -v <path to driver .vib file>
      You must specify the absolute path to the .zip or .vib file. For example:
      $ esxcli software vib install -d  "/vmfs/volumes/Datastore/DirectoryName/DriverName.zip"
    6. Verify the VIB installation.
      $ esxcli software vib list
    7. Reboot the ESXi host.