Installing RealTek Nic on Esxi (Esxi white box)

Desktop hardware’s are normally include Realtek nic which do now work in a base install of Esxi. In this article, The below post will walk you through steps to get Realtek nic working

Determine the nic hardware by running the below command:

root@Ryzen:~] lspci -v | grep "Class 0200" -B 1
0000:03:00.0 Network controller Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Onboard Ethernet
         Class 0200: 10ec:8168
--
0000:07:00.0 Network controller Ethernet controller: QLogic Corporation QLogic NetXtreme II BCM5709 1000Base-T [vmnic2]
         Class 0200: 14e4:1639
--
0000:07:00.1 Network controller Ethernet controller: QLogic Corporation QLogic NetXtreme II BCM5709 1000Base-T [vmnic3]
         Class 0200: 14e4:1639
--
0000:08:00.0 Network controller Ethernet controller: QLogic Corporation QLogic NetXtreme II BCM5709 1000Base-T [vmnic0]
         Class 0200: 14e4:1639
--
0000:08:00.1 Network controller Ethernet controller: QLogic Corporation QLogic NetXtreme II BCM5709 1000Base-T [vmnic1]
         Class 0200: 14e4:1639

Run the below command to switch the acceptance level to community support (the VIB can only be installed in community support)

[root@Ryzen:~] esxcli software acceptance set --level=CommunitySupported
Host acceptance level changed to 'CommunitySupported'.

Allow http traffic from the shell by making changes to the firewall

[root@Ryzen:~] esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e true -r httpClient

Use the below command to download and install the VIB

[root@Ryzen:~] esxcli software vib install -d https://vibsdepot.v-front.de -n net55-r8168
Installation Result
   Message: The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the changes to be effective.
   Reboot Required: true
   VIBs Installed: Realtek_bootbank_net55-r8168_8.045a-napi
   VIBs Removed:
   VIBs Skipped:

Reboot the host and you should now have a working Realtek NIC!