ESXi PCI Device Passthrough Fix

Solve the problem that the PCI devices' passthrough deactivates after reboot on ESXi, and it is also hard to reset due to UI flickering.

The bug still presents on ESXi 8.0 Update 1, and here is the solution.

Solution

Edit /etc/rc.local.d/local.sh using vi in ESXi shell after enabling SSH. Add the following two lines before exit 0,

esxcli hardware pci pcipassthru set -a -e FALSE -d $(esxcli hardware pci list | grep 2070 -B 7 | grep Address | sed 's/\s*Address:\s*//')
esxcli hardware pci pcipassthru set -a -e TRUE -d $(esxcli hardware pci list | grep 2070 -B 7 | grep Address | sed 's/\s*Address:\s*//')

Here, modify 2070 to the pattern of device name you want to match. I am using 2070 because I want to passthrough Nvidia RTX 2070 Super.

Also, if there is a device group, you only need to choose one of the device (may be the main device?). Here I choose TU104 [GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER] for the whole group

TU104 [GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER]
TU104 HD Audio Controller
TU104 USB 3.1 Host Controller
TU104 USB Type-C UCSI Controller

Essentially it first disable the passthrough, then enable it again everytime the esxi boots, because after reboot it may says that "the passthrough is enabled but a reboot is needed," which leads to an endless loop of rebooting on your end.

This scripts tends to be the solution to this problem.

Also, see local.sh for the script after modification.