VMware ESXi is a hypervisor software that allows users to create virtual machines (VMs) on physical hardware.
An ESXi device driver is a software component that enables the use of a specific device or resource for VMware ESXi.
The ESXi inbox device drivers are shipped with ESXi.
ESXi async device drivers are developed by hardware vendors or third-party vendors. They are not bundled with the ESXi software. They are usually downloaded from the Broadcom website and then installed.
When an async device driver is installed, the inbox device driver is not removed. This results in more than one device driver being installed for the same device.
When both inbox and async device drivers are present, both are displayed as installed. However, only one of them is loaded and is in use.
How to determine which device drivers are installed
# esxcli software vib list | less
# esxcli software vib list | egrep <driver_name>
Note : If both inbox and async device driver are installed, the above grep command displays both
How to determine which device drivers are in use
# esxcfg-info | less
In case of network drivers :
# ethtool -i vmnicX
To identify the vmnic # of the associated NIC :
# esxcfg-nics -l
# esxcli network nic get -n vmnicX
Should you use ESXi inbox device driver or the ESXi async device driver
Obviously, there is no simple answer to this question. A careful review of the situation should help to come to a decision.
Factors to be considered could be :
- Is the hardware vendor doing active development and fixing many issues in the async device driver?
- Do you want to use a native driver or a vmklinux driver? And why?
- Comparing the release notes of the inbox device driver and async device driver, do you see a pattern?
- Which one seems to be more stable?
- Which one seems to be more actively maintained?
Although this review may take a long time, making this informed decision may avoid an outage or an unpleasant situation in the future.
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