Install driver/firmware on Esxi

Method 1: vCli (command line)

1. Find your driver on VMware HCL (Hardware Compatibility List) http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php
   example on how to find a driver http://ambitech.blogspot.com/2012/12/how-to-find-driver-for-device-for.html?q=find+driver
2. upload the offline-bundle.zip file (which contains the driver, firmware or both) to a shared datastore simply using the datastore browser or to /tmp directory of the Esxi using the WinScp.
3. Enter Maintenance Mode for the Esxi host in question.
4. 
   Run this command to install drivers using the offline bundle (this requires an absolute path):
   
   esxcli software vib install –d /path/offline-bundle.zip
   
   For example:
   
   esxcli software vib install –d /var/log/vmware/offline-bundle.zip
   Note:
   If this command fails, unzip the file and try running the same command. Use localcli instead of esxcli if the hostd is not responding. For example
   
   localcli software vib install –d /var/log/vmware/offline-bundle.zip

    5. reboot.

    6. Exit maintenance mode.

NOTES
If you don't give full path of the error then you will face the following error
"MetadataDownloadError" reading:
Could not download from depot at zip:/var/log/vmware/*update name*.zip?index.xml, skipping (('zip:/var/log/vmware/*update name*.zip?index.xml', '', "Error extracting index.xml from :/var/log/vmware/*update name*.zip: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/var/log/vmware/*update name*.zip?index.xml'"))
url = zip:/var/log/vmware/*update name*.zip?index.xml
Please refer to the log file for more details.
solution:
http://ambitech.blogspot.com/2012/06/esxi-5-patch-installation-fails-with.html?q=full+path+driver

 Method 2.  Update Manager

1. Find your driver on VMware HCL (Hardware Compatibility List) http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php
   example on how to find a driver http://ambitech.blogspot.com/2012/12/how-to-find-driver-for-device-for.html?q=find+driver
2.  From vCenter Server, go to Home > Update Manager.
3. Click the Patch Repository tab.
4. Click the Import Patches link at the top right of the screen.
5. Click Finish. The async driver is added to the patch repository.
6. Create a Host Extension baseline and remediate the ESXi host. For more information, see the Update Manager  
7. Administration Guide.
8. Reboot the ESXi host once the remediation is complete.