Cisco UCS Virtual Interface Card Drivers for ESX Installation Guide
Downloading and Installing Cisco UCS VIC Drivers
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Downloading and Installing Cisco UCS VIC Drivers

This chapter contains the following sections:

Downloading Cisco UCS VIC Drivers

Obtaining the ISO Image Bundle

Procedure
Step 1   In a web browser, navigate to http://www.cisco.com.
Step 2   Under Support, click Download Software.
Step 3   Click Unified Computing and Servers.
Step 4   If prompted, enter your Cisco.com username and password to log in.

You must be signed in to download Unified Computing System (UCS) drivers.

Step 5   Choose your server.

Cisco UCS drivers are available for both Cisco UCS B-Series Blade servers and Cisco UCS C-Series Rack-Mount UCS-Managed Server Software.

Step 6   Click Unified Computing System (UCS) Drivers.
Step 7   Click the Release Notes button to download the latest version of the Release Notes.
Step 8   For each driver ISO that you want to download, do the following:
  1. Click the link for the release that you want to download.

    The latest release version is selected by default.

  2. Choose your download method and follow the prompts to complete your driver download.
    Download Now

    Downloads the software immediately.

    Add to Cart

    Adds the software driver ISO to your cart to be downloaded at a later time.

Step 9   Read the Release Notes before installing the Cisco UCS Virtual Interface Card drivers.

Installing Cisco UCS VIC Drivers

Installation Methods

Cisco UCS Virtual Interface Card drivers for ESX can be installed in the following ways:


  • During a new ESX OS installation.

  • After OS installation using the service console or through a command prompt.

Administrative privileges are required to install and update Cisco UCS Virtual Interface Card drivers.

Installing ESX Drivers During OS Installation

A virtual media image may be used in the following procedure in place of physical media.

Procedure
Step 1   Insert the ESX installation DVD in the host machine's DVD drive.
Step 2   Restart the ESX host.
Step 3   Accept the terms of the license agreement.
Step 4   Choose a keyboard type.
Step 5   When prompted for custom drivers, click Yes to install custom drivers.
Step 6   Click Add to eject the ESX installation DVD.
Step 7   Place the supplemental eNIC or fNIC driver CD in the DVD driver of the ESX host and click Next.
Step 8   Click Yes to load the system drivers.
Step 9   Complete the ESX installation.

After the drivers are installed, you are prompted to remove the driver CD and reinsert the ESX installation DVD.

If the driver loads correctly, one of the following messages is displayed on the console screen after reboot:

Kernel module enic was loaded, but has no signature attached.

Kernel module fnic was loaded, but has no signature attached.

Updating Existing ESX Drivers

You can use this procedure to install offline bundles that have been copied from the driver ISO image to the ESX host.

Procedure
Step 1   Extract the contents of the ISO image to the ESX host.
Step 2   Identify the offline-bundle.zip file containing the eNIC or fNIC driver being installed.
Step 3   Using DataStore Browser, upload the offline-bundle.zip file to the ESX host's datastore.
Step 4   Log into the ESX host using an account with administrator privileges, such as root.
Step 5   Navigate to /vmfs/volumes/datastorename/ and locate the offline-bundle.zip file.
Step 6   Run the esxupdate update --nosigcheck --olderversion --maintenancemode --bundle offline-bundle.zip command.

olderversion is not a variable. olderversion is the verbatim command, specifying that the older, existing version should be replaced with the new driver.

Note   

The ESX driver is unsigned. You must use the nosigcheck option or the installation will fail.

Step 7   Reboot the ESX host.

If the driver loads correctly, one of the following messages appear on the console screen after reboot:

Kernel module enic was loaded, but has no signature attached.

Kernel module fnic was loaded, but has no signature attached.

The following example shows how to update an existing ESX driver with the latest version:

UCS-A# esxupdate update --nosigcheck --olderversion --maintenancemode --bundle fnic-1.4.0.195-esx400-release.zip