Hi,

I first had some troubles installing ESXi 5 (VMware vSphere 5) on my Asus P5E motherboard. The built-in network adapter is a Marvel 88E8056 and I've read that it's somewhat supported using the sky2 driver.
However, I could not figure out how to get it working on my system.
So instead of spending too much time and trying to get it to working I went and bought a Intel PRO/1000 GT Desktop card (PWLA8391GTBLK).

Now that I have got ESXi installed I would like to try to make the Marvel 88E8056 network card working too.

Could someone please explain how I would go by doing that? I'm fairly inexperienced in VMware ESXi.

If you run lspci -p you'll see if the NIC has been at least recognized as one. If it is not there, you can run vmkload_mod <driver_name> to try to load the driver. Then check lspci -p again to see if a module is listed for the NIC now. If not, check /var/log/vmkernel.log. You may see
1) that the driver was loaded but did not claim any devices
2) that the driver could not claim your NIC

In the 1st case you would need an updated driver that would work with your specific NIC.

lspci does list the network interface as a Network Device. How can I permanently have it installed?

I'm just assuming that vmkload_mod <driver_name> (driver_name? sky2?) is a temporary load?

Using vmkload_mod will only be temporary. After you use it, is a module listed for the NIC? If not, then the driver hasn't loaded properly and you'll have to fix that before you can make the change permanent.

vmkload_mod sky2 fixed so that the network had a module registered when looking at lspci -p. How do I make this permanent upon boot?

I really would like some help on making this permanent. I've successfully issued vmkload_mod sky2 to have the adapter loaded.

Cheers!

You mean your NIC works with the built-in sky2-driver, but this driver is not automatically loaded when booting?
If yes that means that the PCI ID is missing from the mapping table of the driver. Then please find out the PCI ID of your NIC (Instructions are here: http://vm-help.com/esx/esx3i/find_PCI_ID.php) and post it here.

I can then prepare a VIB file that provides the necessary mapping, and by installing this VIB on the system you can make the change permanent.

- Andreas

Sounds great!
Yes, the NIC works but is not automatically loaded.

Here are all ID's for the adapter according to Hardware Status tab in the vSphere Client

Segment Number: 0
Bus Number: 3
Device Number: 0
Function Number: 0
PCI Device ID: 0x4364
Device ID: PCI 0:3:0:0
Vendor ID: 0x11ab
Subsystem ID: 0x81f8
Subsystem Vendor ID: 0x1043

Strangely its listed here

Hi,

here you are.

1. Download the attached file and unzip it.
2. Copy the VIB file to a datastore of your host via the vSphere client
3. Put the host into maintenance mode
4. In a shell install the VIB file with the commands

5. Reboot

- Andreas

Perfect! I will have it tested tomorrow.
May you explain to me on thing? How come its listed on http://vm-help.com/esx41/sky2_driver.php but its not automatically detected/loaded? Can't find a difference really..