Esxi Network Drivers Realtek
One of those problems is that (as with vSphere 5.5) certain not supported hardware are the onboard realtek NICs on the cheaper “homelab” motherboards. During this search I came across this workaround (login needed) by Andreas Peetz explaining a method to install the drivers onto the vSphere host(s) in your environment. Realtek NIC on vSphere 6. If your host is already installed and has a direct Internet connection then you can install it from an ESXi shell by running the following commands: esxcli software acceptance set –level=CommunitySupported esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e true -r httpClient esxcli software vib install -n net51-drivers -d.
Hello /r/vmware,
I just purchased some AMD hardware (consumer FX-8320E, 970M w/ OnBoard Realtek RTL8169/8119 [online spec sheet shows RTL8111E]) for my new ESXi build for my lab. I bought another NIC (TrendNet TEG-PCITXR) for another port to mess around with VLANS and such (since its a lab), and I've seen other people use this NIC for ESXi 6 and they have it working fine, however when I tried to install it, I get the lovely no available nics.
Realtek 8111e Esxi
I happened to have a HDD with ESX 6 already installed (was in another working mobo) and logged into the esxi shell, and did some digging. ESXi 6 could 'see' the Realtek onboard NIC, but wasnt loading the driver for it (couldnt find it either) and the Trendnet wasnt even showing up.
So OTHER than just go buy an Intel nic that does work, what am I missing on making either of these 2 NICs work on this build?
Thanks for any answers!
FX-8320E AsRock 970M (RTL8111E) 8G Crucial 1600 DDR3 1TB Seagate Barracude 7200RPM TrendNet TEG-PCITXR
