I know many of you have been holding off on your vSphere 8 upgrade, patiently waiting for a compatible version of the popular USB Network Native Driver for ESXi Fling. Today, the wait is finally over and you can now head over to the USB Network Native Driver for ESXi Fling page to download latest v1.11 version, which is now compatible with vSphere 8! 😀
For those looking to create a custom ESXi images that also incorporates the Fling, you will need to download the latest PowerCLI 13.0 release (due to changes in vSphere 8 for custom ESXi image creation) and also consider using vSphere Lifecycle Manager whether that is through the vLCM UI or using the new vLCM PowerCLI cmdlets or you can use the old vSphere Image Builder interface.
For those in the US that celebrate and/or observe the holiday, enjoy the long weekend!
Thank you very much.
Thanks for the updated fling!
Hello,
Thank you very much ! I've been struggling with it for 2 days!
This is great news for those of us who have lab servers with RealTek NIC’s in the
When I'm trying to incorporate the fling into a vsphere 8 image profile I receive this error: Export-ESXImageProfile : Error retrieving file for VIB 'VMW_bootbank_vmkusb-nic-fling_1.11-1vmw.800.1.20.61054763': ('vib20/vmkusb-nic-fling/VMW_bootbank_vmkusb-nic-fling_1.11-1vmw.800.1.20.61054763.vib', "Unable to open VIB archive in streaming mode:
'_SharedFile' object has no attribute 'writing'").
Any idea?
Same error for me.
I actually ran into this issue earlier this week and have already reported it internally, waiting to hear back from PowerCLI team. Not sure if there's any compatibility issues or an issue w/cmdlets but as suggested in next comment, using Image Builder UI works OR you can use vLCM UI/CLI if you've got a VC 8.0 running https://williamlam.com/2022/11/creating-custom-esxi-images-using-vsphere-lifecycle-manager-vlcm-ui-and-powercli-cmdlets-for-vsphere-8.html
That sounds like a permissions issue. Are you running powershell as admin or user? If running in user then be sure to use the option to install as user. I got loads of errors when trying to use powercli even after upgrading to 13. In the end i used imagebuilder in vcenter8. It worked without a problem and i was able to create a zip file, upload it to a datastore on the remote machine and update my 7.0.3 with usbfling host to 8 with the usbfling remotely through ssh in around 20 mins. I already had vcenter8 installed on my main server but with the issues i got using powercli it would have been worth spinning up a vcenter8 instance from scratch just to create this. Much easier.
For security reasons it's always best to do this yourself but if its allowed, i'm happy to make the file available for others.
Please don't host/provide files you've generated, this goes against VMware EULA
No problem. I did think there might be something like that. So frustrating over 300kb usb that it’s not included in the standard image when it’s so popular. I got there in the end though and learned how to use image builder (I didn’t know existed beforehand) in the process 🙂
Thanks for the tip.
I did it the same way as you with imagebuilder in vCenter 8 that I already got up and running.
I have 2 Intel NUC11 Phantom with TPM 1.2
Had to add the string " --no-hardware-warning" to get the upgrade going.
Both NUCs up and running on vSphere 8 now 🙂
I hope it will be stable.
Hi William...thanks very much for all your assistance!
I installed ESXi 8.0b and then the USB fling, but my Thunderbolt ports are not showing up in the Networking section of ESXi. When I had done the base 8.0 install, and then installed the update separately there was no issue. Going to do more testing but not sure what I am missing here.
OK a bit more info...I realized my BIOS setting for Thunderbolt were not right, so I fixed them and the USB NICs are showing up. My new problem is that once I reboot my ESXi server I lose the USB NICs completely from my vSwitches. Is this back to how ESXi scans for devices?
See Fling Instructions and search for “persistence” 🙂
Hi, I followed the instructions on the fling page and my USB nics are being detected and utilized by my homelab server. The one thing that puzzles me is that I get alerts all the time about lost connectivity, like:
"Lost network connectivity on virtual switch vSwitch0. Physical NIC vusb1 is down. Affected portgroups:Management Network."
At some point I cannot connect to my host or the vms running on it, but it seems random while at most times connectivity gets restored (within a second) and everything keeps working fine.
Any idea in which direction to start looking for what's causing this behaviour?
No idea anyone?
What have you tried? What NIC are you using? Are you sure it's an issue with esxi and not with other hardware? Its VERY hard for people to help when they don't know what you're working with or what you've tried so far.
What "I" would do is eliminate everything else. If you have other things on your switch that don't disconnect, swap the ports, Try the nic in another system and see if the issue moves with it. The slightly nuclear option is to flatten the system, put something like linux or windows on that you know works with the nic and see if you get the same. I would be tempted to say its a nic hardware issue unless you have tested it elsewhere already and eliminated that.
Silly question, BUT. Are you sure the nic you're using is supported?
If you can elaborate a little then you're more likely to get useful help. We all have our own projects so when somebody just asks a general question without any background or essential info then it's easier to skip it rather than going down the rabbit hole 😉
Good points, I see my original post lacks information.
The Nics used are TP-Link UE306 and have a AX88179 chipset. I am not a 100% sure if they are supported so I should check the VendorID to be completely sure I guess. Will do that when I get home.
I have three of them and all three show the same behaviour on my ESXi box. Haven't tested them with another machine or OS but that's another thing I should try.
I mostly have a hard time finding the right/supported hardware for my homelab withou paying a small fortune, and determining a VendorID to be sure something is 100% sure supported can mostly only been done once you start using the device and looking it up then, isn't it?
I use the TP-Link UE306s on a few different setups. I'm not sure of vendor id etc or if it's even on the supported list but i can say they work, at least on esxi7 and the the initial release of esxi8. They've been cracking little additions to my setup 😉
You mention nics as in multiples? are these all on the same machine at the same time? I'm not sure how the fling works or if its supposed to handle multiple nics but would probably try with just one and see what happens. If they're all doing the same thing then it's unlikely to be a nic hardware issue. Like i say, i'm using these and have no issues but i only use one in each machine.
Assuming you drop to one nic and and still face the same problem then i'd maybe start looking at the usb side of things. Maybe an compatibility issue with the box and the usb nic or esxi and the usb controller. Most of my test hardware is beelink or intel nucs and these seem to just work.
Maybe go back to basics. Fresh install, single nic, simple config etc etc. As soon as you start adding complexities it makes it harder to figure out. It "could" be something as simple as a configuration error. At least you now know that the nics you use "should" work 🙂
Hi All, Saw a warning that the page was being deprecated. Now I do see it's 404'ing.
Do We have a new home if the project?
See https://williamlam.com/2023/10/vmware-flings-update.html for your answer