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Jon Topper
Asked: 2009-07-22 05:02:47 +0800 CST

ESXi networking occasionally fails on VM start

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On my ESXi 3.5 servers, I occasionally see a problem where - on newly started VMs - I see no traffic at all on their virtual network interfaces. I have to go into the VM settings and remove, then re-add the network interfaces before I see any traffic.

Has anyone seen this before? Is it possible I need to configure my physical switches (Cisco) differently to support this?

I'm using portgroups to present VLAN traffic to VMs - I've seen this happen on both trunked and untrunked ports, if that matters.

networking vmware-esxi

2 Answers

  1. I have seen this before.

    When I edit the settings and click on the network adapter, the Connect at power on is checked but not the Connected. So far all I needed to do was to check the Connected box and the interface will come up.

    I have not seen this on ESXi 4 yet, but will keep an eye out. Maybe it is related to the adapter type.

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  2. Here's a theory.

    You have VMotion enabled and the machine migrated to a host where the network that it was linked to do not exist.

    When you now remove and add a network adapter, it picks up "VM Network" which works.

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