Installing an offline driver package using the vSphere CLI

I have purchased new Intel NICs for my ESX servers so that I can separate the networking for vMotion and Fault Tolerance.  However, the drivers are not included in ESX so I need to install them.

Once I’d located and downloaded the offline driver bundle for my Intel I340-T2 NICs, and installed the VMware vSphere CLI, this is how I installed the NIC drivers:

1. Put the ESX host into Maintenance Mode

2. Open a command prompt

3. Change directory to C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware vSphere CLI\bin

4 Run the following command:

vihostupdate.pl –server <IP Address of host> -username root –install –bundle <path to offline bundle>

5. Reboot the ESX host