ESXi: How to find HBA/NIC driver/Firmware version

I have seen some problems when running the wrong driver version against firmware version, so here is a guide how to find the information you need to check compatability on ESXI 5.x and 6.0.

I will get all the in the console via SSH.

How to find NIC information:

With the command: 

esxcli network nic list

I can see the names of the NIC, here: vmnic0 and vmnic1

With the command:

esxcli network nic get -n vmnic0

I can see this information:

Adapter name: NC553i
Driver: elxnet
Driver version: 10.5.121.7
Firmware level: 10.2.340.19

How to find HBA information:

There 2 ways to find the information dependent on if you are using native og legacy driver, I will show how to with the native driver (For FC Adapters only, see the note later in the post):

With the command:

/usr/lib/vmware/vmkmgmt_keyval/vmkmgmt_keyval -d

​I can see the names of the NIC, here: vmhba3 and vmhba4

With the command: 

/usr/lib/vmware/vmkmgmt_keyval/vmkmgmt_keyval -l -i vmhba4/qlogic

I can see this information:

Name: QMH2562
Firmware 8.01.02
Flash firmware level: 7.03.00
Bios: 3.24
Driver version: 2.1.27.0

With the command:

esxcli  storage core adapter list

I can see this information:

• Driver: qlanativefc

Notes:

Information for the lagacy/Linux style driver, you can look in the file:

cat /proc/scsi/<driver name>/<number>

Notes (FC adapters):

For Fiber Channel adapters can you also use this command and this will give the information for this (this works in version 7.0.3, not sure with what version it will give you the driver/firmware version.)

esxcli storage san fc list

Check compatibility:

We now have the information for the driver and the firmware, now we wil check the compatibility in the VMware HCL list. Some time we don’t know the exact name of the adapter, then we can use the hardware identifier:

With the command: 

vmkchdev -l |grep vmhba3

I can see this information from the above screenshot:

• VID = 1077
• DID = 2532
• SVID = 103c
• SDID = 3261

This information we use in the VMware HCL site at: http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=io

I know that this is a Mezzanine card so I choose this, but the list for both of them should properly be the same.

The result looks like this:

In this case there are only one result, that does not match our driver and Firmware version is N/A.

Then I check the hardware vendors support, VMware has a KB that links to the vendors: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2030818

link to VMware KB.

In this care it’s HPE and goes to there recipes.

So I need to upgrade both driver and Firmware.

NOTES: 

In some cases the listed firmware or driver is not accessible by VMware og Hardware vendor, for download, please contact Hardware Vendor and/or VMware.

The output for the HBA may vary between vendors.