Identify the NIC driver and supported driver version for an ESXi server

Lately, I troubleshooted some NIC driver problems in VMware ESXi. During the troubleshooting, I needed to Identify the NIC driver, the software version used, and the latest driver version supported by VMware. Here are the steps outlined.

Identify the NIC driver and software version:

  • Make an SSH connection to the ESXi host
  • Identify all the NICs by using the following command: esxcli network nic list

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  • In this example you can see that Intel (igb) and Broadcom (tg3) NICs are used.
  • To identify the driver version of the Broadcom NIC (vmnic0) use the following command: esxcli network nic get -n “vmnic0

driver: tg3 version: 3.135b.v50.1 firmware-version: FFV7.6.14 bc 5720-v1.31 bus-info: 0000:01:00.0

Identify the latest NIC driver supported by VMware:

  • We need to find the hardware IDs of the NIC by using the following command: vmkchdev -L | grep “vmnic"

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The hardware ID contains the following parts:

VID = Vendor Id (Red part) 
DID = Device Id  (Yellow part) 
SVID = Sub-Vendor Id (Green part) 
SSID = Sub-Device Id (Blue part)
  • Open the VMware Compatibility Guide (HCL) webpage and choose IO Devices, Link

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  • On the right you see the “Additional Criteria” column. Enter the VID, DID, SVID, and SSID generated by the vmkchdev command

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  • Click the “Update and View Results” button
  • The NIC is displayed, click on the Model

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  • Expand the version of ESXi (release) used. Click on the the Download link (if exist).

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  • Download the driver and use VMware Update Manager (VUM) or use esxcli software vib update command to install the driver

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