I've been having a dog of a time trying to add a dual 10GBe nic to ESXi. I've tried installing the drivers and everything appears that it is installing but ESXi doesn't seem to be loading the drivers for some reason. This is an Intel NUC NUC7i5BNK host with a OWC Mercury Helios 3 Thunderbolt 3 PCIe Expansion Chassis housing the NIC. The NIC and the expansion chassis is known good on other OS's so everything points to a configuration issue on ESXi or in the bios of the NUC. I've enabled thunderbolt at boot so I think that rules out the BIOS.
[root@esxi1:~] lspci -v | grep -A1 -i ethernet
0000:00:1f.6 Ethernet controller Network controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection (4) I219-V [vmnic0]
Class 0200: 8086:15d8
--
0000:06:00.0 Ethernet controller Network controller: Intel(R) 82599 10 Gigabit Dual Port Network Connection
Class 0200: 8086:10fb
--
0000:06:00.1 Ethernet controller Network controller: Intel(R) 82599 10 Gigabit Dual Port Network Connection
Class 0200: 8086:10fb
[root@esxi1:~] vmkload_mod -l |grep drivername
[root@esxi1:~] vmkload_mod -l |grep ixgben
[root@esxi1:~] esxcfg-nics -l
Name PCI Driver Link Speed Duplex MAC Address MTU Description
vmnic0 0000:00:1f.6 ne1000 Up 1000Mbps Full 94:c6:91:15:0b:e4 9000 Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection (4) I219-V
[root@esxi1:~] esxcli software vib install -d "/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/VMW-ESX-
6.7.0-ixgben-1.7.10-offline_bundle-10105563.zip"
Installation Result
Message: The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the changes to be effective.
Reboot Required: true
VIBs Installed: INT_bootbank_ixgben_1.7.10-1OEM.670.0.0.8169922
VIBs Removed: INT_bootbank_ixgben_1.7.1-1OEM.670.0.0.7535516
VIBs Skipped:
Still no joy after reboot
[root@esxi1:~] esxcli hardware pci list
0000:06:00.0
Address: 0000:06:00.0
Segment: 0x0000
Bus: 0x06
Slot: 0x00
Function: 0x0
VMkernel Name:
Vendor Name: Intel Corporation
Device Name: 82599EB 10-Gigabit SFI/SFP+ Network Connection
Configured Owner: VMkernel
Current Owner: VMkernel
Vendor ID: 0x8086
Device ID: 0x10fb
SubVendor ID: 0x8086
SubDevice ID: 0x7a11
Device Class: 0x0200
Device Class Name: Ethernet controller
Programming Interface: 0x00
Revision ID: 0x01
Interrupt Line: 0xff
IRQ: 255
Interrupt Vector: 0x00
PCI Pin: 0x00
Spawned Bus: 0x00
Flags: 0x3219
Module ID: -1
Module Name: None
Chassis: 0
Physical Slot: 4294967295
Slot Description:
Passthru Capable: true
Parent Device: PCI 0:5:1:0
Dependent Device: PCI 0:6:0:0
Reset Method: Function reset
FPT Sharable: true
0000:06:00.1
Address: 0000:06:00.1
Segment: 0x0000
Bus: 0x06
Slot: 0x00
Function: 0x1
VMkernel Name:
Vendor Name: Intel Corporation
Device Name: 82599EB 10-Gigabit SFI/SFP+ Network Connection
Configured Owner: VMkernel
Current Owner: VMkernel
Vendor ID: 0x8086
Device ID: 0x10fb
SubVendor ID: 0x8086
SubDevice ID: 0x7a11
Device Class: 0x0200
Device Class Name: Ethernet controller
Programming Interface: 0x00
Revision ID: 0x01
Interrupt Line: 0xff
IRQ: 255
Interrupt Vector: 0x00
PCI Pin: 0x01
Spawned Bus: 0x00
Flags: 0x3219
Module ID: -1
Module Name: None
Chassis: 0
Physical Slot: 4294967295
Slot Description:
Passthru Capable: true
Parent Device: PCI 0:5:1:0
Dependent Device: PCI 0:6:0:1
Reset Method: Function reset
FPT Sharable: true
[root@esxi1:~] esxcfg-nics -l
Name PCI Driver Link Speed Duplex MAC Address MTU Description
vmnic0 0000:00:1f.6 ne1000 Up 1000Mbps Full 94:c6:91:15:0b:e4 9000 Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection (4) I219-V