NMLX5 Driver (4.23.0.66) Limits Number of Uplinks to 8

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

When upgrading to ESXi 8.0U2, customers using more than 8 physical NICs may lose connectivity. They are visible as PCI devices on the host, but they are no longer assigned a VMNIC number (not in use by the ESXi hypervisor) 

Environment

VMware ESXi 8.0 U2

Cause

In ESXi 8.0U2, NVIDIA has made a fix in nmlx5 driver (4.23.0.66) to correctly handle uplink devices during driver attach sequence. This fix limits the total number of nmlx5 uplinks supported on 8.0U2 to '8'.

Resolution

Upcoming 8.0U3 nmlx5 inbox driver to supports higher number of uplinks.

Workaround:
Revert back to 8.0 U1