Replacing Async Drivers with Inbox Drivers on ESXi in VMware Cloud Foundation

Products

• VMware Cloud Foundation

Issue/Introduction

This article provides instructions for replacing async drivers with inbox drivers on ESXi in VMware Cloud Foundation.

Resolution

1. Download the ESXi offline bundle zip from customerconnect.vmware.com and extract the contents.
2. Navigate into the folder in which the bundle was extracted and locate the desired driver and vib file.
3. Upload the driver vib to the VSAN datastore using the datastore browser from the vSphere Web Client.
4. Place the host into maintenance mode.
5. Connect to the SSH or DCUI for the ESXi host and copy the vib from the data store to the ESXi host using a temporary location such as a /tmp. 
6. Issue a command similar to the following to install the desired driver:

esxcli software vib install -v /path_to_driver_file/driver_filename.vib

7. Reboot the ESXi host by issuing the reboot command.
8. Repeat steps four through seven on any other hosts that need the different driver installed.