I had my doubts about posting this one cause it definitely breaks your support. But a quick search on google revealed that it has been posted before so if you’re gonna do it why not use “my” procedure. Again I would like to stress that this should only be done for test purposes. Mark Erica was so kind to email me this procedure that they used to replace a faulty driver. The driver would be in the next version of ESXi or probably a patch but due to the severe problems they could not wait.

This is how they injected a driver into an installable and running ESXi server:

• Log-on to the ESXi host with SSH
• Go to directory where tars are saved and you should find binmod.tgz there:
  cd /bootbank
  ls -l
• Copy the current original binmod.tgz to temporarily disk location, in this example datastore/test/binmod:
  cp binmod.tgz /vmfs/volumes/datastore/test/binmod/binmod.tgz
• Untar/zip the file:
  tar -xzvf binmod.tgz
• Copy the new driver to the extracted binmod.tgz directory:
  cp /vmfs/volumes/datastore/test/unm_nic.o /vmfs/volumes/datastore/test/binmod/mod/unm_nic.o
• Change rights of new file:
  chmod 755 unm_nic.o
• Make sure you changed the right of the file:
  cd /vmfs/volumes/datastore/test/binmod
ls -l
• tar/gzip the binmod again:
  tar -cvzf binmod.tgz usr bin etc lib mod sbin
  Notice that all directories have to be packed from root level: usr bin etc lib mod sbin
• Go to the bootbank to replace the old binmod.tgz with the new one:
  cd /bootbank
rm binmod.tgz
cp /vmfs/volumes/datastore/test/binmod/binmod.tgz /bootbank/binmod.tgz
• Make sure you replaced the binmod.tgz correctly, check timestamps:
  ls -l
• Reboot server
• Check if the correct driver has been installed after the reboot:
  cd /mod
ls -l
  The result should be new driver file

So you see it’s fairly easy to inject drivers, keep in mind that this is at your own risk. I just noticed VM-Help also has a procedure on his website.

I really love the fact that more and more people are starting to contribute to Yellow-Bricks by sending me scoops, tips, tricks or even commenting. Thanks guys, and if you want to contribute in anyway just drop me an email on duncan [@] yellow-bricks.com