Nube question: Virtual Switches

[Highspeedlane]

Sorry for the nube question here. I have ESXi 4.1 installed on a Dell R900. The installation is basically with default settings for the most part.

On the hypervisor I have two Windows Server hosts joined to the domain. The IP address of the management network (hypervisor) is X.X.1.5. The IP of each virtual server host is X.X.1.6 and X.X.1.7. These addresses go to a X.X.1.254 gateway on a Cisco switch where they route out onto the network.

So far things seem to be functioning properly but while trying to figure out an issue with WSUS server running on one of the server hosts, I came across some postings referencing the need to create virtual switches and assign the nic of each of the virtual hosts to one of the virtual switches.

I have a weird issue on one of the virtual server hosts which is running WSUS server in which it won't display both virtual servers in the WSUS management snapin simultaneously, but seems to show them alternately, as if there's some sort of intermittant connectivity issue.

Is it bad to have both virtual server nics on the same virtual switch? Thanks for any advice or tips here. I do try to research these things as much as possible before posting a question but sometimes the material is a bit over my head at this stage in my knowledge of ESXi.

Thanks for any tips or advice.

[Arnim Lieshout]

It looks like you have a duplicate WSUS client ID. Probably caused by cloning a server or template. You can use the following batch file to reset WSUS client ID:

@echo on
net stop wuauserv
REG DELETE "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate" /v PingID /f
REG DELETE "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate" /v AccountDomainSid /f
REG DELETE "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate" /v SusClientId /f
net start wuauserv
wuauclt /resetauthorization /detectnow

Preferably seperate ESX management- and VM traffic on your network, but it should be no problem as long as there's no IP conflict.

[Highspeedlane]

Ah...very helpful. I'll test that out tomorrow and get back. Thanks!

[Highspeedlane]

Okay...looks like the WSUS issue was something non-SID related. I'm moving the WSUS server to this VM server and even though all group policy pointed clients to the new server, the old server wouldn't release its hooks apparently. Once I deleted the WSUS install from the old server, the clients at issue were calling into the new server. Though they haven't officially appeared in the group yet, the number of clients indicated by WSUS that belong to that group is correct. Hopefully they will appear within the next few hours. Thanks for the tip on that though.

The other issue relating back to the virtual switch question is this though. I have the E1000 virtual nic for both servers. Periodically, one of the virtual servers loses connectivity with our file server (a non-VM Dell server). At the same time this is happening, I still have connectivity to any other server. The server it loses connectivity to is the old WSUS server, if that's relevant.

Do you think selecting one of the other virtual nic options might improve performance here? These VM's are Server 2003 R2 Enterprise. Thanks for any and all tips.