ESXi

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  • 1.  what to do if NIC is down (esxcfg-nics -l)

    Posted Mar 16, 2011 12:58 PM

    For third time this week, I find a x3550 server with a NIC down.

    The command "esxcfg-nics -l" displays "vswif0" as "down", with wrong speed and wrong duplex.

    I try "esxcfg-nics -r" to restore from configuration file, but the cfg is not changed, neither the NIC started.

    And, of course, I am missing the command to turn the NIC "up" again ... How is it done ?

    The other 2 times, I restarted the whole server and both NICs start working ok, so I know it is not a network problem.

    Instead, there is a new Ubuntu 64-bit VM that is very suspicious of producing this error.

    Any ideas ? Sebastian.



  • 2.  RE: what to do if NIC is down (esxcfg-nics -l)

    Posted Mar 16, 2011 01:15 PM

    the "down" means there is no link, as if there is no network cable plugged in. Maybe a broken cable with loose connection?

    Regards



  • 3.  RE: what to do if NIC is down (esxcfg-nics -l)

    Posted Mar 16, 2011 01:28 PM

    No, no - there is no network problem.

    I did restart the server (for 3rd time this week) and all VMs are OK now, without touching any cable.

    My network is private, so no provider is involved.

    It is something related to the 64-bit virtual Ubuntu machine.

    When they start it, there is a chance is mis-configures the NIC ...

    Sebastian.



  • 4.  RE: what to do if NIC is down (esxcfg-nics -l)

    Posted Mar 17, 2011 10:29 PM

    down ussually means network cable is not connected..It will come up automatically assuming you have network connectivity on it.

    this has nothing to do with your provider.

    vswif is used for your management network or your service console. Assuming you have more than 2 nics and hopefully 2 vswitches than it is very likelly that your VMs are using the other nic.

    Try using the following commands

    esxcfg-vswitch -l that will show you how your overall networking is configured on the ESX server.

    netstat -int this will hsow you all your nics and potentially show you issues with traffic.

    in your place though I would be checking my cabling and switches...



  • 5.  RE: what to do if NIC is down (esxcfg-nics -l)

    Posted Mar 18, 2011 10:59 AM

    Thank you for your feedback, mr OPBZ, but this is not the case.

    I had to do it 4 times in 2 days (and the server has 12 VM's !!! so the users were not very happy) : I do

    >>> shutdown -r now

    and both NICS start working perfectly ...

    All I need is a command to set the NIC "up" and/or "down", the same way I can do "ifup intfce" and "ifdown intfce" .. but it seems it does not exist.

    Let me tell ALL the truth : one I was able to fix the problem,

    and it was done by changing one-by-one the VM's from one NIC (the not-working one) to the other (the working one).

    Suddenly, both NICs started working, .... so this is the line we are following now ...

    Also, we have stopped using Ubuntu server 10.10 with ESX 4.0, and have moved back to 9.04, as indicated in "guest OS compatibility guide" :

    >>>  http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=software

    Thanks for your time ! Sebastian.



  • 6.  RE: what to do if NIC is down (esxcfg-nics -l)

    Posted Mar 18, 2011 02:06 PM

    not sure what you mean by had to do what 4 times?

    I have not idea why you decided to reboot your server multiple times. reboots. Its ussually not necessary,

    ok so now we know you have 2 nics.. still dont know the number of vswitches and the overall network configuration.

    If you moved your VMs from one nic to the other and that resolved your issue... does that not kinda imply you have a networking issue? How did you resolve the problem on the non working nic?

    If your nics are on 2 different vswitches I would not have expected it to have affected your vswif0. THe fact that it has probably means you have default config with 1 vswitch and 2 portgroups one for vms and other for management.

    While  I would not have expected ubuntu to knock out your vswif in the first place. Also Ubuntu 10.10 is fully supported on several version of ESX mainly ESX 4.1 and 4.0 update 2.

    The lack of more information you provide makes any further troubleshooting futile.



  • 7.  RE: what to do if NIC is down (esxcfg-nics -l)

    Posted Mar 18, 2011 03:10 PM

    I had the NIC down problem 4 times this week ... and solved every time by rebooting the server ... so no cabling issue involved

    yes, we have 2 NICs, one switch each

    if I move a VM from one NIC to another, ... and that makes previous NIC start to work ... I would say THIS IS NOT a physical problem, but ESX confusion.

    our ESX is exactly 4.0.0, so Ubuntu 10.10 is not fully sopported.

    I repeat  my first question was asking for "i need a command to stop/start a NIC" that I can display is DOWN right now",

    and it seems there is no such a command ...

    Thanks a lot !