# VMware ESXi 6 Not Assigning NIC



## Delta_X7 (Nov 8, 2008)

I have a box running ESXi 6 with dual NICs.
When I installed ESXi I had to manually roll the Net-51 drivers into the installation media. This allowed ESXi to recognize my Realtek RTL8111/8168 NIC that's built-in to the mobo. I was able to install and the system is running fine off the 8168 assigned as vmnic0

The system also has a Realtek RTL8169/8110 PCI NIC. According to the Net-51 driver package that I rolled into the install, this card should be working. (Both the 8168 and 8110 are listed as supported devices on that page).

The only NIC displaying in vSphere is vmnic0 which is the 8168.
On the ESXi host I ran lspci -v | grep Realtek which shows the following:

```
0000:02:07.0 Ethernet controller Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8169/8110 Family PCI Gigabit Ethernet NIC
0000:04:00.0 Ethernet controller Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller [vmnic0]
```
So the system is seeing the 8110 as it should. Now I check the vendor and device ID of the 8110 with lspci -n | grep 02:07 (the PCI slot and bus number)

```
0000:02:07.0 Class 0200: 10ec:8169
```
ESXi is detecting the second card properly. Let's try to roll in the drivers again and see if that changes anything.
Download the Net-51 drivers offline bundle and push it to the host.
esxcli software vib install -d /vmfs/volumes/Data/net51-drivers-1.[...].zip

```
[DependencyError]
 File path of '/etc/vmware/driver.map.d/r8168.map' is claimed by multiple non-overlay VIBs: set(['VFrontDe_bootbank_net51-drivers_1.1.0-1vft.510.0.0.799733', 'Realtek_bootbank_net55-r8168_8.039.01-napi'])
 VIBs (Realtek_bootbank_net55-r8168_8.039.01-napi, VFrontDe_bootbank_net51-drivers_1.1.0-1vft.510.0.0.799733) are conflicting with each other
 File path of '/usr/lib/vmware/vmkmod/r8168' is claimed by multiple non-overlay VIBs: set(['VFrontDe_bootbank_net51-drivers_1.1.0-1vft.510.0.0.799733', 'Realtek_bootbank_net55-r8168_8.039.01-napi'])
 Please refer to the log file for more details.
```
Hmmm, to me this makes it seem like the driver is already installed, so it won't try to overwrite it. Let's refer to the log file referenced. Under the esxupdate.log:

```
2015-05-06T20:48:14Z esxupdate: root: ERROR: VIBs (Realtek_bootbank_net55-r8168_8.039.01-napi, VFrontDe_bootbank_net51-drivers_1.1.0-1vft.510.0.0.799733) are conflicting with each other
2015-05-06T20:48:14Z esxupdate: root: ERROR: File path of '/usr/lib/vmware/vmkmod/r8168' is claimed by multiple non-overlay VIBs: set(['VFrontDe_bootbank_net51-drivers_1.1.0-1vft.510.0.0.799733', 'Realtek_bootbank_net55-r8168_8.039.01-napi'])
```
Basically the same thing, looks to me like it already sees the drivers, and won't overwrite them.

I'm not even sure if installing the driver is what needs to happen, since the system detects the card properly at the hardware level. vSphere just won't "see" it and assign it as a NIC. I'm at a loss here now.

These are some of the pages I have referenced:
VMware KB: Network cards not detected on an ESXi/ESX host

https://vibsdepot.v-front.de/wiki/index.php/Net51-drivers


----------

