Back in July with the release of vSphere 7.0 Update 3f, I had shared that all Intel i219 devices from the Community Networking Driver Fling for ESXi is now part of default ESXi 7.0 Update 3f installation. This simplified the ESXi installation process as customers no longer needed to create a custom ESXi ISO that contains the Fling driver.
While the e1000-community module within the Community Networking Driver Fling for ESXi has been productized, the Fling also includes another driver module called igc-community which adds support for Intel i220, i225 & i226 PCIe-based network devices. For recent Intel NUC platforms like the Intel NUC 11 (Panther Canyon & Tiger Canyon), Intel NUC 11 Extreme (Beast Canyon), Intel NUC 12 Extreme (Dragon Canyon) and Intel NUC 12 Pro (Wall Street Canyon) the Fling is still required for ESXi to recognize the onboard network interfaces.
As of vSphere 8, which was recently announced at VMware Explore US, I am happy 😆 (or jacked, jazzed, or pumped) to share that the Community Networking Driver Fling for ESXi will be fully productized! Customers who install ESXi 8.0 will no longer need to create a custom ESXi Image and the network devices listed on the Fling page will automatically be detected by ESXi.
That's exciting! It almost feels like we're taking a step forward again on support for drivers, after so many were removed from the initial 7.0 release.
Thanks for your work William.
The only bad part is it only recognize the USB nic at 100mb
Im currently using 7.0.3 with the usbfling. I've tried to install 8 but it doesn't recognise the usb network adaptor. i use a TP-Link USB 3.0 to Gigabit Ethernet Network Adapter (UE306) with with 7.0.3 and it works great. Shame its not supported out of the box with 8. Hopefully a fling can support this on 8 as it did with 7. Its only a backup/test box but i'd still prefer it to be on 8 like my other boxes.
Hello William,
any plans to support Realtek 8111H-CG on NUC7pjyhn in ESXi 7/8 ?
Regards
Pascal
No plans for RTL support. That must come from RTL who has not expressed interests in supporting this eco-system
Hi thanks again William to all the works you share with the community, quick question I install ESXi8 + disable eCore than no problem to install it. When I connect the NUC to the gigbit port the NIC stay 'Disconnected' any ideas ?
I need to configure the switch port to 100 half duplex to be able to get the NIC working any way to put to at least 1 GB ?
I found it :
in BIOS disabled the LAN interface rebooted then re enabled it <- weirdly enough, that was the solution to not responsive LAN interface problem like only able to work at 100mb Half, now works at 1000mb
I got a Lenovo M70Q Gen 4 which has a I219-LM NIC. But the device-id is not supported in any community or already integrated drivers i found:
Intel® Ethernet Connection (22) I219-LM ID 8086-0DC7.
Is there any chance or timeline that this variant could get integrated?
I already looked a bit into Intel NVM Utility if i could just change the id in the eeprom but didn't find the right resources and didn't want to brick my device.
Thanks
Updated i219 drivers will be available in a future ESXi update ... I wouldn't recommend changing deviceID via eeprom ... could indeed affect your system.