Install/Update drivers on esxi 5.1

Well, I've been update many drivers lately. Not sure why after we updated the esxi 5.1 build patch from 7xxxxx to 1xxxxxx version, some of the drivers remain the same. Anyway, manual update is the best solution for some system that use variety of hardware's components.

Usually, you need to transfer a driver to the host first. For me, I'd unzip the downloaded file first (to get xxx-offlinebundle.zip) and then just throw everything inside the decompressed folder to the host.

The command to install/update the driver.
#esxcli software vib install --depot=/path/to/offlinebundle.zip
or you can use
#esxcli software vib update --depot=/path/to/offlinebundle.zip

To make sure the driver installed successfully, please reboot the host and check with this command.
#esxcli software vib list |grep <The driver's name>

To remove the driver
#esxcli software vib remove --vibname=<name of your driver, you can find with the previous command>

Don't forget to reboot the server every time you make a change to the driver.
And please enter maintenance mode before taking any action.

Moving ESX host from 4.1 cluster to 5.1 cluster with EVC enabled.

Because we have an updated plan for our entire virtual system (From 4.1 to 5.1) I created new vCenter and Clusters enable with the same version of EVC. If you need to move the hosts without downtime, you need to do these step carefully.

1. Make sure both cluster (4.1 and 5.1) have the same version of EVC. Just created a new empty cluster within vCenter 5.1 and enable EVC feature.
2. Remove hosts from old cluster.
3. Add the hosts to vCenter 5.1. Under Data Center not the cluster
4. Drag the hosts into your cluster.

That's it !
Seems easy, but if you have difference version of EVC, you might need to follow the step from KB which may requires downtime if you don't have enough resource to hold your virtual machines.

Trying to come back

I don't know why I left this blog neglected for years. Maybe there were a lot of works to be done and It surprisingly increases my knowledge from time to time. Since I graduated from my college, I've been working with MFEC and I met a lot of people that taught me a lot of thing.

Anyway, I'll try to write down things I knew in here once again. Just to be sure, I must tell you that my English has been weakening. There might be something I cannot explain clearly as I could earlier. haha