AIO Ep3. Installing I219V Network Driver on ESXi

This article explains how to integrate the I219V network driver into an ESXi installation ISO.

Long story short, my previously purchased Gen10+ had an unexpected issue, so I ended up selling it on Xianyu (a Chinese secondhand marketplace). (Surprisingly, I even made a small profit…)

I’ll introduce my current hardware setup later. For now, let’s focus on solving the problem of missing network drivers when installing ESXi on a consumer-grade motherboard.

Since ESXi’s primary management interface is web-based, lacking a network driver during installation means you can’t proceed with setup.

However, ESXi is designed mainly for server motherboards, and onboard NICs from many consumer motherboards (like mine) aren’t recognized by default. Adding a separate NIC just for installation wastes a PCIe slot.

The solution? Pre-bundle the required driver into the ESXi ISO image.

My motherboard is the ASRock B460M Pro4, which has an onboard Intel I219V NIC.

The I219V comes in many minor revisions, and newer variants aren’t supported out-of-the-box in ESXi. My model is Ethernet Connection (12) I219-V. Fortunately, I found a community driver that supports the following versions:

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Ethernet Connection (10) I219-LM
Ethernet Connection (10) I219-V
Ethernet Connection (11) I219-LM
Ethernet Connection (11) I219-V
Ethernet Connection (12) I219-LM
Ethernet Connection (12) I219-V
Ethernet Connection (13) I219-LM
Ethernet Connection (13) I219-V
Ethernet Connection (14) I219-LM
Ethernet Connection (14) I219-V
Ethernet Connection (15) I219-LM
Ethernet Connection (15) I219-V
Ethernet Connection (16) I219-LM
Ethernet Connection (16) I219-V
Ethernet Connection (17) I219-LM
Ethernet Connection (17) I219-V

Combined with the drivers already included in ESXi, this should cover most I219V variants.

Originally, this community driver could be downloaded from VMware’s official site here, but the link appears to be dead now.

You can download it from my cloud drive instead.

You’ll also need to download the official ESXi Offline Bundle from VMware’s website.

Then, run the following PowerShell commands (adjust paths as needed) to create a custom ISO. Burn it to a USB drive, and you’re good to go.

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Install-Module -Name VMware.PowerCLI
$esxiOfflineBundle = "E:\esxi\VMware-ESXi-7.0b-16324942-depot.zip"
$intelNicOfflineBundle = "E:\esxi\Intel-NUC-ne1000_0.8.4-3vmw.670.0.0.8169922-offline_bundle-16654787.zip"
$esxiImageProfileName = "ESXi-7.0b-16324942-standard"
$newImageProfileName = "ESXi-7.0b-Intel-i219"
Add-EsxSoftwareDepot $esxiOfflineBundle
Add-EsxSoftwareDepot $intelNicOfflineBundle
$IntelNUCVib = Get-EsxSoftwarePackage | where {$_.name -eq "ne1000-intelnuc" -and $_.version -eq "0.8.4-3vmw.670.0.0.8169922"}
New-EsxImageProfile -CloneProfile $esxiImageProfileName -Name $newImageProfileName -Vendor vGhetto
Add-EsxSoftwarePackage -ImageProfile $newImageProfileName -SoftwarePackage $IntelNUCVib
Export-EsxImageProfile -ImageProfile $newImageProfileName -ExportToIso -FilePath "E:\esxi\ESXi-7.0b-Intel-i219.ISO"

p.s. There’s another method using the ESXi-Customizer-PS script, but I couldn’t get it to work. See here for details.

If you’d rather skip the hassle, I’ve already prepared a customized ISO with the latest ESXi 7.0 Update 2 available for download.