You must download and install the VIB for your NVIDIA GRID graphics card on the ESXi 6.0 U1 or later host.

For an NVIDIA GRID vGPU configuration, NVIDIA provides a vGPU software package that includes a vGPU Manager, which you install on the ESXi host in this procedure, and a Linux Display Driver, which you will install on the Linux virtual machine in a later procedure.

For an vSGA configuration, NVIDIA provides a VMware vSphere ESXi Driver for vSGA. For vSGA, an NVIDIA display driver is not installed on the Linux virtual machine.

Prerequisites

  • Verify that vSphere 6.0 U1 or a later release is installed in your environment.
  • For an NVIDIA GRID vGPU configuration, verify that the NVIDIA Maxwell M60 GPUs are installed on the ESXi host.
  • For a vSGA configuration, verify that the NVIDIA GRID K1 or K2 GPUs are installed on the ESXi host.

Procedure

  1. Download the VIB for your NVIDIA GRID graphics card from the NVIDIA Driver Downloads site.
    Select the appropriate VIB version from the drop-down menus.
    Option Description
    Product Type GRID
    Product Series For vGPU, select NVIDIA GRID vGPU.

    For vSGA, select GRID Series.

    Product Select the version (such as GRID K2) that is installed on the ESXi host.
    Operating System Select the VMware vSphere ESXi version.
  2. For an NVIDIA GRID vGPU configuration, take these steps:
    1. Uncompress the vGPU software package .zip file.
    2. Upload the vGPU Manager folder to the ESXi 6.0 U1 host.
    Note: You will install the Linux Display Driver on the Linux virtual machine in a later procedure.
  3. For a vSGA configuration, upload the VMware vSphere ESXi Driver for vSGA to the ESXi 6.0 U1 host.
  4. Power off or suspend all virtual machines on the ESXi host.
  5. Connect to the ESXi host using SSH.
  6. Stop the xorg service. 
    # /etc/init.d/xorg stop
  7. Install the NVIDIA VIB.
    For example: 
    # esxcli system maintenanceMode set --enable true
# esxcli software acceptance set --level=CommunitySupported
# esxcli software vib install --no-sig-check -v /path-to-vib/NVIDIA-VIB-name.vib
# esxcli system maintenanceMode set --enable false
  8. Reboot or update the ESXi host.
    3D Type Description
    NVIDIA GRID vGPU For an installed ESXi host, reboot the host.

    For a stateless ESXI host, take the following steps to update the host. (These steps also work on an installed host.) 

    Update vmkdevmgr:
# kill -HUP $(cat /var/run/vmware/vmkdevmgr.pid) 

Wait for the update to complete:
# localcli --plugin-dir /usr/lib/vmware/esxcli/int deviceInternal bind  

This is a new requirement with the NVIDIA 352.* host driver:
# /etc/init.d/nvidia-vgpu start  

Restart xorg, which is used for GPU assignment:
# /etc/init.d/xorg start
    vSGA
    1. Restart xorg, which is used for GPU assignment: 
      # /etc/init.d/xorg start
    2. Reboot the ESXi host.
  9. Verify that the xorg service is running after the host is restarted.