Getting network card driver version in ESXi 5.0

This a quick follow-up post to the How to check the driver version of a network interface in ESX(i) one. That post covered ESX(i) 4.x so I decided to write a small update for ESXi 5.0.

First I have to say that the two methods described in my first post still work in ESXi 5.0 Shell.

~ # vmware -l
VMware ESXi 5.0.0 GA
~ #
~ # vmkload_mod -s e1000 | grep Version
Version: Version 8.0.3.1-NAPI, Build: 456551, Interface: 9.2 Built on: Jul 29 2011
~ #
~ # ethtool -i vmnic0
driver: e1000
version: 8.0.3.1-NAPI
firmware-version: N/A
bus-info: 0000:02:00.0
~ #

Thanks to the new changes made by VMware in ESXi 5.0 we can now use esxcli to get the same result.

~ # esxcli system module get -m e1000
   Module: e1000
   Module File: /usr/lib/vmware/vmkmod/e1000
   License: GPL
   Version: Version 8.0.3.1-NAPI, Build: 456551, Interface: 9.2 Built on: Jul 29 2011
   Signed Status: VMware Signed
   Signature Issuer: VMware, Inc.
   Signature Digest: 1049 0611 a944 efc3 b683 341d 34b1 bebc 552d cb81 a874 ef4c 0562 8f25 2775 8c8d
   Signature FingerPrint: cb44 247a 1614 cea1 2079 362d ec86 9d0e
   Provided Namespaces:
   Required Namespaces: com.vmware.driverAPI@9.2.0.0, com.vmware.vmkapi@v2_0_0_0
~ #
~ # esxcli system module get -m e1000 | grep Version
   Version: Version 8.0.3.1-NAPI, Build: 456551, Interface: 9.2 Built on: Jul 29 2011
~ #

There is a big advantage on using esxcli over the other methods. In ESX(i) 4.x and ESXi 5.0 with the old procedure you had to be logged into the host but with esxcli it can be performed remotely using vSphere CLI.

vi-admin@vma:~[esxi5.vjlab.local]> esxcli system module get -m e1000
   Module: e1000
   Module File: /usr/lib/vmware/vmkmod/e1000
   License: GPL
   Version: Version 8.0.3.1-NAPI, Build: 456551, Interface: 9.2 Built on: Jul 29 2011
   Signed Status: VMware Signed
   Signature Issuer: VMware, Inc.
   Signature Digest: 1049 0611 a944 efc3 b683 341d 34b1 bebc 552d cb81 a874 ef4c 0562 8f25 2775 8c8d
   Signature FingerPrint: cb44 247a 1614 cea1 2079 362d ec86 9d0e
   Provided Namespaces:
   Required Namespaces: com.vmware.driverAPI@9.2.0.0, com.vmware.vmkapi@v2_0_0_0
vi-admin@vma:~[esxi5.vjlab.local]>
vi-admin@vma:~[esxi5.vjlab.local]> esxcli system module get -m e1000 | grep Version
   Version: Version 8.0.3.1-NAPI, Build: 456551, Interface: 9.2 Built on: Jul 29 2011
vi-admin@vma:~[esxi5.vjlab.local]>

But there is more, thanks to Get-EsxCli cmdlet the same operation can be done using PowerCLI, here it is how.

First we need to setup the esxcli instance.

And now we issue the command using the name of the module as the argument, please pay attention to the syntax.

As you should have imagined this procedure can be used to get info about any VMkernel module in the host, not just the network interface one.

Juanma.