How to Obtain the VMware's Native Drivers from VMware Offline Bundle

In certain situations, it may be necessary to employ the VMware Inbox-Native driver rather than the OEM Driver (Partner Async), or you may have to reinstall it. For example, if you accidentally remove an OEM driver (Partner Async), you can download it from VMware's Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) site.

However, if a VMware Inbox-Native driver is removed and you want to reinstall it, the VMware HCL site does not provide you with the link. You may not be able to find it on VMware's product download page.

In such cases, you can readily obtain a replacement by extracting the native driver from the ESXi offline bundle.

1. Download the ESXi offline bundle .zip from https://support.broadcom.com/, according to the ESXi version of the host, and extract the contents.
2. Go to the folder in which the bundle was extracted and browse the vib20 folder. You see a list of folders with the driver's modules names:

Here, for example, is the PERC driver module. Notice the "vmw" acronym between the version numbers. That confirms it is a native driver.

An OEM driver vSphere Installation Bundle (VIB) would have the "OEM" acronym between the version number. Example:

3. Log in to the ESXi host using the vSphere Client with administrator privileges, such as root
4. Using Datastore Browser, upload the driver VIB file to the ESXi host’s datastore. Optionally, you can use a Secure Copy Protocol (SCP) tool to connect to the host and upload the VIB file.
5. Enter the host into Maintenance Mode.
6. Log in as root to the ESXi console through SSH or iDRAC.
7. Run this command to install drivers from the VIB file:

esxcli software vib install –v /path/async-driver.vib

8. Restart the ESXi host.
9. ​​​​​​​Exit Maintenance Mode.