NUC-11
The Intel NUC Mini PCs are great mini computers to run VMware ESXi. Unfortunately, the image of VMware ESXi 7 doesn’t support the network drivers of the NUC 11th generation. A post on https://www.virten.net/2021/11/vmware-esxi-7-0-update-3-on-intel-nuc/ describes how to create a new image, with support for the network driver. I put this post here primarily as a personal reminder.
VMware imagebuilder
The image is build with VMware PowerCLI.
Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy AllSigned Import-Module VMware.ImageBuilder
Now download the ESXi offline image and the network driver. Then start PowerShell and navigate to the location where you have downloaded the files.
Add the image file
Add-EsxSoftwareDepot .\VMware-ESXi-7.0U2a-17867351-depot.zip Depot Url --------- zip:C:\Users\User\Desktop\vmware\VMware-ESXi-7.0U2a-17867351-depot.zip?index.xml
Then add the network driver
Add-EsxSoftwareDepot .\Net-Community-Driver_1.2.2.0-1vmw.700.1.0.15843807_18835109.zip Depot Url --------- zip:C:\Users\User\Desktop\vmware\Net-Community-Driver_1.2.2.0-1vmw.700.1.0.15843807_18835109.zip?index.xml
Now define a new ESX image and add the software packages.
New-EsxImageProfile -CloneProfile "ESXi-7.0U2a-17867351-standard" -Name "ESXi-7.0U2a-17867351-NUC" -Vendor "virten.net" Name Vendor Last Modified Acceptance Level ---- ------ ------------- ---------------- ESXi-7.0U2a-17867351-NUC virten.net 29/04/2021 0... PartnerSupported
Add-EsxSoftwarePackage -ImageProfile "ESXi-7.0U2a-17867351-NUC" -SoftwarePackage "net-community" Name Vendor Last Modified Acceptance Level ---- ------ ------------- ---------------- ESXi-7.0U2a-17867351-NUC virten.net 23/11/2021 1... PartnerSupported
And then as a final step, build the ISO image.
Export-ESXImageProfile -ImageProfile "ESXi-7.0U2a-17867351-NUC" -ExportToISO -filepath ESXi-7.0U2a-17867351-NUC.iso
This ISO image is the image to write to an USB drive which you can then use to boot your NUC.
thank you for sharing
Perfekt, thanks a lot!!!
My God. It worked. Thank you.
Finally I can use my NUC for VMware and not Proxmox. This was great.
Thanks for saving my home lab and the investment I have done. I followed the commands that you have written above step by step, Used the Net-Community-Driver_1.2.7.0. Now Asus Prime B660M-A D4 Motherboard that comes with Intel 219 Chipset is working. This may be helpful to someone who is looking for similar issue.
nice.. I mis-red some of the stuff you wrote .. but in the end – all good 🙂
For anyone else who just want the script used here is mine:
Install-Module -Name VMware.PowerCLI
Import-Module VMware.ImageBuilder
Add-EsxSoftwareDepot “C:\Users\MarThom\Downloads\VMware-ESXi-7.0U3e-19898904-depot.zip”
Add-EsxSoftwareDepot “C:\Users\MarThom\Downloads\Net-Community-Driver_1.2.7.0-1vmw.700.1.0.15843807_19480755.zip”
New-EsxImageProfile -CloneProfile “ESXi-7.0U3e-19898904-standard” -Name “ESXi-7.0U3D-19482537-NUC” -Vendor “asgaard”
Add-EsxSoftwarePackage -ImageProfile “ESXi-7.0U3D-19482537-NUC” -SoftwarePackage “net-community”
Export-ESXImageProfile -ImageProfile “ESXi-7.0U3D-19482537-NUC” -ExportToISO -filepath C:\temp\ESXi-7.0U3D-19482537-NUC.iso
So it looks like this is not possible running powershell in macOS/linux. Is that correct?
Hi,
I encounter several error messages since Python etc. is not installed on my system.
Any chance that you can send me your exported final iso image?
Would be great!
Thanks in advance!
Alex
Hello Alex,
Unfortunately sharing the ISO image is not possible.
Koen