RDMA functionality unavailable on Intel E810/E830 adapters after upgrading to ESXi 9.1 or higher

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• After upgrading to ESXi 9.1 or higher using OEM-customized images, RDMA (irdman) devices may fail to initialize.
• While standard network connectivity via the icen driver remains functional, the command "esxcli rdma device list" returns no output. This happens because the irdman is intentionally disabled when it detects incompatible driver versions.

Environment

• Software: VMware ESXi 9.1 and later.
• Hardware: Intel Ethernet Controller E810 or E830 series.
• Image Type: OEM-customized ISOs or environments using Async drivers (icen)

Cause

This issue is caused by a version and driver-type mismatch between the network driver (icen) and the RDMA driver (irdman).  Starting with ESXi 9.1, for the Intel NICs, the system requires both drivers to be of the same type—either both Inbox (provided by Broadcom) or both Async (provided by the vendor), because running mismatched drivers can lead to system instability or a PSOD.

Resolution

• OEM vendors need to include the Async irdman driver along with Async icen into the OEM-customized images.
• The customers can download Async irdman drivers from Broadcom compatibility guide and install them manually to restore the RDMA functionality