I have ESXi 5.1 on C6100 running very stable with Mellanox ConnectX 2 VPI for some time now (driver OFED 1.8.1) and decide it's time to upgrade to vSphere 5.5a.
First, I tried update manager. It shows the driver on 5.1 (1.8.1) is not compatible with 5.5 (it comes with 1.9.7). Then I tried use Patrick's method using ESXi-Customizer replace 1.9.7 drive with 1.8.2 driver. It has couple warnings but I am able to create the ISO. During the install, it stopped at driver components not find. Looks like upgrade is not a good option at this point.
Then, I decide to using 5.5 ISO for a fresh install. ConnectX 2 show up fine but it only has Ethernet driver not IB driver. Update manager does not work in here either since it already has the 1.9.7 driver which is newer then 1.8.2. The following article saved my day InfiniBand install & config for vSphere 5.5 | Erik Bussink
I did the following for the fresh loaded 5.5 on C6100
1. enable shell and SSH
2. Remove 1.9.7 driver by the following command: esxcli software vib remove -n=net-mlx4-en -n=net-mlx4-core
3. reboot
4. verify 1.9.7 is gone for good: esxcli software vib list | grep mlx4
5. use WinSCP upload 1.8.2 zip file to tmp folder
6. install 1.8.2 by the following command: esxcli software vib install -d /tmp/MLNX-OFED-ESX-1.8.2.0.zip --no-sig-check
7. Reboot
Then everything works just like before
The only problem for production environment is, in-place upgrade does not seems like an option until newer version of OFED for ESXi is available.
First, I tried update manager. It shows the driver on 5.1 (1.8.1) is not compatible with 5.5 (it comes with 1.9.7). Then I tried use Patrick's method using ESXi-Customizer replace 1.9.7 drive with 1.8.2 driver. It has couple warnings but I am able to create the ISO. During the install, it stopped at driver components not find. Looks like upgrade is not a good option at this point.
Then, I decide to using 5.5 ISO for a fresh install. ConnectX 2 show up fine but it only has Ethernet driver not IB driver. Update manager does not work in here either since it already has the 1.9.7 driver which is newer then 1.8.2. The following article saved my day InfiniBand install & config for vSphere 5.5 | Erik Bussink
I did the following for the fresh loaded 5.5 on C6100
1. enable shell and SSH
2. Remove 1.9.7 driver by the following command: esxcli software vib remove -n=net-mlx4-en -n=net-mlx4-core
3. reboot
4. verify 1.9.7 is gone for good: esxcli software vib list | grep mlx4
5. use WinSCP upload 1.8.2 zip file to tmp folder
6. install 1.8.2 by the following command: esxcli software vib install -d /tmp/MLNX-OFED-ESX-1.8.2.0.zip --no-sig-check
7. Reboot
Then everything works just like before
The only problem for production environment is, in-place upgrade does not seems like an option until newer version of OFED for ESXi is available.