Hi there
I have ESXi 5 on a Dell R710 rack mounted system, with an Intel 82599EB 10 Gb Ethernet adapter, utilising a Dell N743D SFP+ module (under the hood this is simply the Finisar FTLX8571D3BCL module). While lspci shows the NICs, as follows:
000:007:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation 82599EB 10-Gigabit SFI/SFP+ Network Connection [vmnic4]
000:007:00.1 Network controller: Intel Corporation 82599EB 10-Gigabit SFI/SFP+ Network Connection [vmnic5]
000:008:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation 82599EB 10-Gigabit SFI/SFP+ Network Connection [vmnic6]
000:008:00.1 Network controller: Intel Corporation 82599EB 10-Gigabit SFI/SFP+ Network Connection [vmnic7]
esxcli network nic list does not. This appears to be because of this error message in /var/log/vmkernel.log:
ixgbe 0000:08:00.1: failed to load because an unsupported SFP+ module type was detected.
I've tried multiple ixgbe driver versions, up to and including the latest (3.7.13-1OEM.500.0.0.472560). In the source of the ixgbe driver, however, they mention that this particular SFP+ module has had 'some testing'. Has anyone got a working configuration with this combination of hardware? If not, is there another SFP+ module that is recommended for ESXi 5?
Thanks,
Peter