How to check network driver and NIC firmware details in VMware ESXi
When working on my recent article,
I quickly discovered that there seemed to be some shortcomings when checking the device driver versions for some network adapters, such as those that are found my set of two Xeon D servers. These SoC (System on a Chip) servers feature two integrated Intel I-350 1GbE ports and two integrated X552/X557 10GbE ports, details as seen at the Supermicro SuperServer SYS-5028D-TN4T Product Page. Googling around for network driver version esxi results in these 2 VMware Knowledgebase articles right at the top:
Nope, that doesn't apply to any ESXi since 5.1, let's move on to the next KB article...
Alright, now we're getting warmer. In KB 1034674, I jumped down to the section entitled "Obtaining Network card driver and firmware information," and spotted this:
In ESXi 5.x, run this command to figure out your network name (column 1):
esxcli network nic list
Now use the desired network name here, substituting it for vmnic0
esxcli network nic get -n vmnic0
This seemed very promising, at least at first. Then I soon realized that the detailed version of the igbn driver isn't there. Hmm.
On a whim, I also tried looking at Intel's readme for the latest i350 10GbE 4.5.3 driver. Nope, turns out those instructions don't show driver details either:
Use esxcli, vsish, or esxcfg-* to set or get the driver information, for example:
Get the driver info
esxcli network nic get -n vmnic1Get an uplink stats
esxcli network nic stats get -n vmnic1- Get the Netqueue stats
vsish -e get /net/pNics/vmnic1/stats
the output is just 0.1.0.0.
Time to come up with another way. My way, not necessarily the best or only way. If you have a better way, by all means, let us all know by dropping a comment below!
My alternative approach works broadly across many systems by simply looking for all drivers with gb in the name:
esxcli software vib list | grep gb
Tada, there it is! Between each of 3 screenshots, I glean all I need, with a lot of detail, including hints about where the driver came from. In the next 2 screenshots below, you'll see I've run all 3 commands, on each Xeon D system.
How to check for network firmware and detailed driver info
esxcli network nic list
esxcli network nic get -n vmnic0
esxcli software vib list | grep gbLet's have a look at the output of these 3 commands, for these 2 Xeon D systems.
Example 1
- Xeon D-1541
- Intel I350 1GbE - fresh install of ESXi 6.5 Update 1
- default inbox drivers
- nic name
vmnic0 - driver name
igbn - nic firmware
1.63.0:0x800009fa - nic driver
0.1.0.0-14vmw.650.1.26.5969303 - nic driver vendor
VMW
What's up with the INT and VMW that comes after the device driver?
- INTel
- VMWare
I could also figure out all the same things about the 10GbE NICs too, using the same commands. But I use vmnic2 instead of vmnic0.
Example 2
- Xeon D-1567
- Intel X557 10GbE - already updated to ESXi 6.5 Update 1 EP04
- updated I350 0.1.0.0 driver and X557 4.5.3 driver
- nic name
vmnic2 - driver name
ixgbe - nic firmware
0x800005ad - nic driver
4.5.3-1OEM.600.0.0.2494585 - nic driver vendor
INT
Note that this time around, I can see the basics of the driver version from the esxcli network nic get -n vmnic2 command this time, showing 4.5.3-iov, but slightly lacking in details, so I still used the esxcli software vib list | grep gb command to get more.
Ah, so it's the device driver provider, that makes sense. Contrast that with the driver names for the VMW drivers, aka inbox drivers, apparently first provided with the indicated ESXi Build Number.
In my 1GbE example above, that's 5969303. Looking that up, that means it's from 6.5 Update 1.
In my second 10GbE example, it's the older ESXi 6.0 GA build number 2494585 released 2015-03-12. In other words, this X557 driver family first arrived in the ESXi 6.0 GA days, which matches up nicely with exactly what happened.
Hope you learned something, feedback left below is always appreciated!
Footnotes
- In my Xeon D-1567 example above, you'll also note that I've got newer I350 igbn 0.1.0.0-14vmw.650.1.26.5969303 VMWware driver and X557 ixgbe 4.5.3-1OEM.600.0.0.2494585 INTel drivers loaded, here's exactly how those were loaded.
- The Intel I-350 is also known as i350 and i350-AM2.
- The Intel X552/X557 is also known as 10GBASE-T PHY, Intel X557-AT/ X557-AT2.
Source, Intel.
Nov 05 2017 Update
Nice shout-out from Michael White, in his most recent installment of his weekly newsletter:
- Newsletter: 5 November, 2017
Nov 05 2017 by Michael White at Notes from MWhite
My approach is short, just 3 lines anybody can paste into XCLI. An admittedly much more thorough approach is what Michael is referring to, it's the vDocumentation tool that my colleague Ariel Sanchez came up with, uses PowerCLI (download 6.5.0R1 here), all the details here:
- Document your vSphere environment? Yes you can!
Aug 16 2017 by Michael White at Notes from MWhite
See also at TinkerTry
- How to check that your TCP Segmentation Offload is turned on in both your VMware ESXi server and your VMs
Oct 29 2017
These systems still work great for many even 9+ years later, mine included, even with (unsupported) vSphere 8 and Windows 11 Version 21H2. But unless you added the optional TPM module, it may be the end of the line as far as repurposing them for running the latest Windows 11 Version 24H2 and beyond.