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vSphere 8 productizes Community Networking Driver Fling for ESXi

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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.

First look at the new Supermicro E302-12D (Ice Lake D)

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The Intel Xeon D embedded SoC product line is an amazing platform and has been extremely popular amongst VMware customers for VMware Homelabs and running workloads both in the Datacenter and at the Edge using kits like the Supermicro E200-8D and E300-9D to just name a few. While the E200-8D/E300-9D still remain popular, they are slowly coming up on their end of life support, Q1 2023 and Q1 2025 respectively.

Intel Ice Lake D is the first major architectural refresh of the Intel Xeon D product line, which is quite exciting for those looking to upgrade and take advantage of all the latest hardware capabilities this new platform as to offer! Two Ice Lake D kits that I am really excited for is the Supermicro E300-12D and E302-12D, both of which leverage the new Ice Lake D SoC. As a E200-8D owner, my only real nit pick is with the noise of the fans which can sound like a jet engine when using the stock fans. Although I have replaced the stock fans with the much quieter Noctua fans, under higher load the system is still audible and some in the community have also reported that it may still not be enough to cool system.

If I had to start all over again, I certainly would be looking at one of the new fanless kit from Supermicro! I was fortunate enough to get my hands on the upcoming Supermicro E302-12D system, a fanless Ice Lake D kit which has a similiar design to the existing E300-9D.

So here is your first sneak peak at this new Ice Lake D platform! 😀

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Quick Tip - ESXi 7.0 Update 3f now includes all Intel I219 devices from Community Networking Driver Fling

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Thanks to Reuben F who left a comment on the Community Networking Driver for ESXi Fling asking about something interesting he saw in the latest ESXi 7.0 Update 3f release notes regarding Intel ne1000 driver.

ESXi 7.0 Update 3f upgrades the Intel-ne1000 driver to support Intel I219-LM devices that are required for newer server models, such as the Intel Rocket Lake-S platform. The TCP segmentation offload for the I219 devices is deactivated because of known issues in the hardware DMA.

He asked whether the Community Networking Driver for ESXi Fling was still needed to support the various Intel I219 devices on the Fling requirements page?

First off, thank you Reuben for making me aware of this, which I totally missed while reading the release notes. Secondly, I reached out to Songtao, one of the Engineers on Fling and he was also surprised by the news. He checked the source and then confirmed that all listed Intel I219 devices in the Fling has actually been incorporated into the latest ESXi 7.0 Update 3f release and the Fling would no longer be required for these specific devices and we have Shu, another Engineer on the Fling to thank for this awesome update! Thank you Shu!

Songtao, Shu and myself had released the Community Networking Driver for ESXi Fling back in early 2021 to help support some of the networking devices that we had observed in the community and there have been a number of releases that has added additional devices. It is always a great feeling to see your work not only being well adopted but also now productized. This is one of the many benefits of the VMware Fling's program and being able to share a solution that solves an immediate problem and iterating on feedback from our users, we have the opportunity to enhance and improve our products/services. Thank you to all the VMware customers who have and continue to support us! 🙏

Who knows ... maybe the network devices under the igc-community module in the Fling will be productized next? 😀