Network becomes unavailable with ntg3 driver on ESXi 6.5

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Network becomes unavailable with full passthrough devices
• If a native ntg3 driver is used on a passthrough Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet Adapter, the network connection will become unavailable.
• Running below command, you see ntg3 driver in use.
  
  # esxcfg-nics -l

 

 

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7

Resolution

To resolve this issue, use any one of these options:

Option 1:Run the ntg3 driver in legacy mode

 

1. To run the ntg3 driver in legacy mode, run the following command on host:
   
   # esxcli system module parameters set -m ntg3 -p intrMode=0
    
2. Reboot the host.

 

Option 2:
 

1. Use the tg3 vmklinux driver as the default driver, instead of the native ntg3 driver by running below commands:
   
   esxcli system module set --enabled=false --module=ntg3
   esxcli system module set --enabled=true --module=tg3
    
2. Reboot the host.

 

 

Additional Information

ESXi 6.5 中的网络因 ntg3 驱动程序变得不可用