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USB Native Network Driver for ESXi supports Realtek RTL8157 & RTL8156BG

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In response to community feedback, we are excited to announce an update to the popular USB Native Network Driver for ESXi Fling . This release is currently available for ESXi 8.0 Update 3 and adds support for the latest Realtek USB devices: RTL8157 (5GbE) & RTL8156BG (2.5GbE), bringing the total number of supported chipsets to over 25+. A similar update is also planned for ESX 9.0, which will be published hopefully in the next few weeks.

Several of you have asked about specific models compatible with the latest Realtek chipset. Below are the two I am currently using for testing, which you can find the links below. If you have other recommendations that work, feel free to share them in the comments.

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Realtek Network Driver for ESXi

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I never thought this day would ever come as I am sure this will come as a complete shock to many, but I am pleased to announce that we have just released a new VMware Fling: Realtek Network Driver for ESXi 😎

Yes, you read that right! 🤯


In fact, I have it running on my Minisforum MS-A2 which has an RTL8125 (2.5GbE), which I can now use! The RTL Driver can be installed on either ESX 8.0 Update 3+ or 9.x+

This Realtek (RTL) PCIe-based driver is NOT an official driver from Realtek, it was developed by one of our VCF Engineers, Wenchao 👏

The driver currently supports the following RTL PCIe Devices:

  • RTL8111 - 1GbE
  • RTL8125 - 2.5GbE
  • RTL8126 - 5GbE
  • RTL8127 - 10GbE

To download the Realtek Network Driver for ESXi offline bundle, head over to the Free Downloads section for Flings on the Broadcom Support Portal (BSP).

UPDATE (02/05/26) - If you are using the Free ESXi 8.0 Update 3e ISO and would like to incorporate the Realtek Network Driver for ESXi, please see this blog post for the instructions.

UPDATE (11/21/25) - RTL Network Driver for ESXi 1.101.01 is now available and resolves network connection drop that some folks were experiencing. If you have not installed this version, go ahead and download and follow the installation steps below. If you had installed the earlier version of the driver, you can simply upgrade without re-installing, please see the instructions below for more details.

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Updated method for automatically joining vCenter Server using ESXi Kickstart

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Have you ever written a script that gets the job done and years later, you go back and ask yourself ... what the heck did I do or why did I do it that way!?! 😅

Probably not as frequent as we should but I have found myself in these situations over the years, whether it is addressing an issue/enhancement or needing to explain the code to another colleague.

While copious free time is never on our side in IT, it does help to re-evaluate your automation and processes over the years to see if there are new techniques, enhancements that can make the automation more effective.

I was recently CC'ed on a Reddit thread about some automation that I had worked on more than 14 years ago that would automatically join an ESXi host to vCenter Server using an ESXi Kickstart script.

Knowing what I know now and probably even earlier, the solution of calling into the vSphere MOB and manually crafting the XML payload to join the ESXi host to a desired vSphere Cluster in vCenter Server was certainly not ideal, but it got the job done. We can certainly improve the solution leveraging a more modern solution, while still staying true to the original requirements of being able to perform vSphere Cluster addition directly from ESXi 8.x/9.x Kickstart without relying on external dependencies.

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