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Manually configuring a virtual machine to use the e1000 network adapter driver

Details

Installing VMware Tools in a virtual machine configured with a virtual network interface card (NIC) automatically installs the vmxnet driver and switches the network adapter to vmxnet. Some physical network adapters require that the e1000 interface and driver be used for the virtual NIC.

For more information on adding or modifying a virtual machine's virtual network interfaces, see the Configuring and Managing Virtual Machines - Network Virtual Machine Configuration section of the Virtual Machine Administration Guide for the appropriate version of ESX.

Solution

Note: Before you begin please review Restarting the Management agents on an ESX or ESXi Server (1003490) for important information on restarting the mgmt-vmware service.

Configure and ESX virtual machine to use the e1000 virtual network interface adaptor and driver as follows:

Power off and unregister the virtual machine prior to making this change.
Log in as root to the terminal of the VMware ESX host.
- For VMware ESX 4.1 and earlier, see Connecting to an ESX host using a SSH client (1019852). Alternatively, access the physical console and press Alt+F1 to begin the authentication process.
- For VMware ESXi 4.1, see Using Tech Support Mode in ESXi 4.1 (1017910).
- For VMware ESXi 4.0 and 3.5, see Tech Support Mode for Emergency Support (1003677).
Locate and open the virtual machine configuration file (.vmx) for editing. For more information on procedures for editing the configuration files, see Editing configuration files in VMware ESX (1017022).
The network configuration options start with ethernet, numbered according to the interface, appearing similar to:

ethernet0.present = "true" ethernet0.virtualDev = "vmxnet" ethernet0.networkName = "Virtual Machine Network" ethernet0.addressType = "vpx" ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:50:56:ab:74:96" ethernet0.pciSlotNumber = "32"
For each network interface you wish to change to e1000, modify the virtualDev line:

ethernetN.virtualDev = "e1000"
Save the virtual machine configuration file.
Register and power on the virtual machine.

Note: You may need to restart the ESX Management services after making this change. For more information, see Restarting the Management agents on an ESX or ESXi Server (1003490).

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