Install i40e driver into VMWare ESXi

Objective

Environment

• ESXi-6.0.0-20160302001
• i40e
  • i40e-1.4.28-1331820-4075203
• Intel XL710
  • Including vmnic{2-5}

Step

Check Status

[[email protected]:~] esxcli network nic list
Name    PCI Device    Driver  Admin Status  Link Status  Speed  Duplex  MAC Address         MTU  Description
------  ------------  ------  ------------  -----------  -----  ------  -----------------  ----  -------------------------------------------------
vmnic0  0000:08:00.0  igb     Up            Up             100  Full    8c:ea:1b:30:da:2b  1500  Intel Corporation I210 Gigabit Network Connection
vmnic1  0000:09:00.0  igb     Up            Down             0  Half    8c:ea:1b:30:da:2c  1500  Intel Corporation I210 Gigabit Network Connection

• Please enable SSH daemon on the server

Download i40e driver and unzip

• Please download i40e driver from here first
• Unzip and transfer to ESXi

  [[email protected]:~] unzip i40e-1.4.28-1331820-4075203.zip
  Archive:  i40e-1.4.28-1331820-4075203.zip
   extracting: i40e-1.4.28-1331820-offline_bundle-4075203.zip
   extracting: net-i40e-1.4.28-1OEM.550.0.0.1331820.x86_64.vib
   extracting: doc/README.txt
   extracting: source/driver_source_net-i40e_1.4.28-1OEM.550.0.0.1331820.tgz
   extracting: doc/open_source_licenses_net-i40e_1.4.28-1OEM.550.0.0.1331820.txt
   extracting: doc/release_note_net-i40e_1.4.28-1OEM.550.0.0.1331820.txt
  
  [[email protected]:~] scp i40e-1.4.28-1331820-offline_bundle-4075203.zip [email protected]:/tmp/
  i40e-1.4.28-1331820-offline_bundle-4075203.zip                                  100%  141KB   9.9MB/s

Install VIB

[[email protected]:~] esxcli software vib install -d /tmp/i40e-1.4.28-1331820-offline_bundle-4075203.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: Intel_bootbank_net-i40e_1.4.28-1OEM.550.0.0.1331820
   VIBs Removed:
   VIBs Skipped:
[[email protected]:~] reboot

Check NIC Status

[[email protected]:~] esxcli network nic list
Name    PCI Device    Driver  Admin Status  Link Status  Speed  Duplex  MAC Address         MTU  Description
------  ------------  ------  ------------  -----------  -----  ------  -----------------  ----  ---------------------------------------------------------
vmnic0  0000:08:00.0  igb     Up            Up             100  Full    8c:ea:1b:30:da:2b  1500  Intel Corporation I210 Gigabit Network Connection
vmnic1  0000:09:00.0  igb     Up            Down             0  Half    8c:ea:1b:30:da:2c  1500  Intel Corporation I210 Gigabit Network Connection
vmnic2  0000:01:00.0  i40e    Up            Down             0  Half    cc:37:ab:dd:f1:e5  1500  Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller X710 for 10GbE SFP+
vmnic3  0000:01:00.1  i40e    Up            Down             0  Half    cc:37:ab:dd:f1:e6  1500  Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller X710 for 10GbE SFP+
vmnic4  0000:01:00.2  i40e    Up            Down             0  Half    cc:37:ab:dd:f1:e7  1500  Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller X710 for 10GbE SFP+
vmnic5  0000:01:00.3  i40e    Up            Down             0  Half    cc:37:ab:dd:f1:e8  1500  Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller X710 for 10GbE SFP+

Reference

• VMware ESXi 5.5 i40e 1.4.28 NIC Driver for Intel(R) Ethernet Controllers X710 and XL710 family
• VMware Compatibility Guide - Intel(R) Ethernet Controller XL710 for 10GbE QSFP+
• Intel Server Adapter XL710 Card (NIC) Driver for Vmware ESXi 5.5 & 6 - ThinkServer Systems