How to bring Realtek 8168/8169 network adapters back to life under vSphere 5.5

As with all previous vSphere releases, vSphere 5.5 dropped support for certain network adapters. One of those is Realtek 8168/69. Luckily the drivers included in vSphere 5.1 will work in 5.5. You can either extract the drivers form the distributable ESXi install (ZIP) or download the VIB from the links provided below. Once you have the driver files follow steps outlined below.

1. Upload the VIB to a datastore which is visible by your ESXi 5.5 host (volume1 in this example)
2. Make sure that you enable SSH and connect via Putty
3. Use the following command to install the VIB: esxcli software vib install -v /vmfs/volumes/volume1/VMware_bootbank_net-r8169_6.011.00-2vmw.510.0.0.799733.vib
4. Reboot host

To check installed VIBs run the following command: esxcli software vib list

Here is the source of the information:

http://www.vladan.fr/realtek-8169-nics-not-detected-under-esxi-5-5/

http://www.bussink.ch/img/VMware_bootbank_net-r8168_8.013.00-3vmw.510.0.0.799733.vib
http://www.bussink.ch/img/VMware_bootbank_net-r8169_6.011.00-2vmw.510.0.0.799733.vib