VMware ESXi 7.0 USB compatibility

Just a heads up for this thinking of migrating to the latest to ESXi 7.0, USB, passthrough for USB based Aeotec controller doesn’t currently work. USB passthrough probably affects other USB based devices so just be aware before jumping in. I’ll follow-up if I find a solution.

Working fine for me on my test env.

Flagged as I was planning to do the upgrade 6.7 -> 7.0 today ! :slight_smile:

Ok, I won’t update to ESXI 7.0. I can’t.
I have a custom vib for my Realtek NIC Controler. It was fine up to ESXI 6.7, but from ESXI 7.0 it is not accepted anymore so I can’t upgrade.

Hi John, can you give me some details on how you USB device is connected, USB2 or USB3 etc. how did you add it to HA VM? I still can’t get mine to be recognized. Any special drivers you used?

There are several older HBAs and network cards that are deprecated with 7 so don’t blindly go updating without re-saving release notes and having a roll back strategy.

Hi,

On 8th gen NUC and USB ports detected with the base level drivers and it just works. Nothing funky needed.

I’m also using a Aeotec stick in my test env. I map that to the VM, which is Ubuntu 18.04, and then from that use Docker to map it to the official HA docker images.

Thanks John. I wonder if this is an issue with my X11SDVs USB controller being recognized rather than the stick itself then.

Knowing Supermicro’s naming scheme X11 would denote a fairly new chipset. Could be that the drivers in the ESXi install don’t properly support it.

I follow this blog for info as find it pretty good. I see some issues with newer Intel chipsets and the NIC but no mention of the USB.

The biggest thing they have been working towards for this release is the deprication of vmklinux and therefore a large legacy driver set. To check if there is anything using this run “esxcli system module list | grep vmklinux”.

Yep, I know.
Problem ‘solved’. I’ve decided to move from ESXi to Proxmox. :slight_smile:
I will add a second lighter node and 3rd very light node (Rpi) to be able to manage cluster, replication and migration. :heart_eyes:

I been hit by it myself, just in a different way. Some features have been removed when some drivers went from vmklinux to native.

I’m not a fan of Proxmox, but I must say if you are going to a cluster and even if you had access to vSphere (such as an education license), on “7” vCenter is no longer windows and the virtual appliance is memory bloated IMO so Proxmox isn’t a bad choice. Myself I’m looking into an oVirt move (but have concerns over Kernel version).

Has anyone had luck fixing this? I am sadly in the same boat. Dell r720 freshly upgraded from 6.7 to 7.0 and all my USB devices are not being recognized. Looks like the controller shows up, but not the devices. I don’t even know where to start looking.

Just curious if anyone tried 7.0U1 that was released recently. Any improvements with being able to passthrough USB devices?

No problem on passing through devices on my Supermicro server running v7.0 or 7.0U1, using an Aeotec gen5 stick without issues

I had the same issue when upgrading to esxi 7.0, (now 7.0u1) controller available but no usb device.

It might been because I played around with the drivers etc 6 month ago but maybe it helps someone…

My vmkusb was not loaded, I enabled it, rebooted esxi and voila!

#Check
[root@ESX-i:~] esxcfg-module -l
vmkusb Not Loaded

#Enable vmkusb
esxcli system module set -m=vmkusb -e=TRUE

#reboot esxi

2 Likes

Thank You jesaug ! It resolves this issue after updating my ESXi to 7.0u1