Net55-r8168 Offline Bundle Download
Mirthe Sinkey
I've gone down the rabbit hole of finding the ESXi-Customizer-PS powershell script from -Customizer-PS, and the relevant drivers for my network card from -front.de/wiki/index.php/List_of_currently_available_ESXi_packages (net55-r8168)
Hello, anyone can help-me whats wrong with my configuration? My hyper-v server use the intel RI350 adapter and i download the offline bundle net-igb-5.3.2 and net55-r8168 (to intel hyperv) and net-tulip. To install i choose the -pkgdir to create a customize ISO and when i finish the installer i have the no network adapter found.
Find the build information. Open the compressed file for the Esxi bundle you downloaded: c:\esxibuild > ESXi670-201912001 > metadata > profiles. There should be 4 profiles. Copy the path for the next commands.
I patched the offlinebunde ESXi670-201906002.zip with net55-r8168-8.045a-napi-offline_bundle.zip following your instructions today. According the logs (Alt+F12) I could see that an ip address was assigned, though finaly the purple screen of death came up with following message:
"Failed to Validate Acceptance Level. Failed to Check Acceptance Level: None"
You saved my day; after I changed my motherboard to an ASUS P9X79 with XEON 2687v2, the Intel 82579V nic was directly recognized, but not the second Realtek 8111E nic. With your help, I updated my ESXi 6.7 to the latest OS release and just installed that net55-r8168-8.045a-napi.x86_64.vib file. One issue I found out, but not sure is has something to do with my network, I had the set the Realtek nic to 1000/full (same on the Cisco Switch side), because auto negote didn't work.
Hi, I know this is old now.
Brilliant post, sad that V7 has messed things up. I have an ASUS board with two built in NICs, Intel and Realtek. ESXi V8.0 recognises the Intel NIC but not the Realtek. So I tried something similar from another blog using the driver package from Vibsdepot.de and adding a community package using SSH. It sort of accepted it but ran up against the error
"[ProfileValidationError] In ImageProfile (Updated) ESXi-8.0.0-20513097-standard, the payload(s) in VIB VFrontDe_bootbank_net55-r8168 ...... does not have sha-256 gunzip checksum. This will prevent VIB security verification and secure boot from functioning properly. Please remove this VIB or please check with your vendor for a replacement of this VIB ..."
It allowed me to complete and reboot, so it is still running, but still doesn't recognise the Realtek in the Navigator (though it can see it in the SSH CLI)
Is there any way of stopping ESXi from requiring the sha-256, or would your method of building a new image work? or do I just accept I can't use the second NIC unless I put in a new Card?
Thanks
A custom ESXi Image Profile will need to be created to include the net55-r8168 offline bundle which is a community created VIB by Andreas Peetz who runs the popular community VIB Depot. You can either use PowerCLI to create the Image Profile and then export the ISO to install on the ASRock system or use the new Image Builder UI that is now part of the vSphere HTML5 Client as of vSphere 6.7 as shown in the screenshot below. If you wish to also take advantage of the USB-based NICs from the VMware Fling, you should also include that offline bundle when creating your custom Image Profile.
You can modify the downloaded offline bundle (it is a ZIP archive with the ESXi installation files) by adding to it all VIB drivers from the specified directory:
.\ESXi-Customizer-PS-v2.6.0.ps1 -izip .\VMware-ESXi-6.7.0-9484548-HPE-Gen9plus-670.10.3.5.6-Sep2018.zip -pkgDir C:\distr\esxi\driver
The ESXi Offline bundle is available for paying customers now, and it's not known when users of free version of ESXi will be able to download it. So in this guide I'll show you two ways of upgrading the existing ESXi hosts. The hosts can be running ESXi Free Version or not. The offline bundle works for both.
cluster 1 (3 esx) and cluster 2 ( 2 esx). I need to upgrade the cluster 2 (only has 2 VMs in each host) from 5.5 to 6.
Can I update each host on cluster 2 separately using offline bundle.(without affecting cluster 1)
or it is necessary to use VUM for this?