Autostart VM Guest machines when Host starts?

[vParker]

I am looking for a way to autostart my VM's hosted on a ESXi 4.1 host.  The reason is that I cannot connect to the host via client anymore for some reason.  Network connection issues.  It is an HP blade and I can iLO to it so I get onto the console and run commands.  I would like to reboot the blade but it is running one VM that is production.  I can RDP into this VM, shut it down cleanly (Windows 2008) and then restart the blade.  the issue may be that if I cannot reconnect to the host via the client I will not be able to power up the Production VM,

Thoughts?

Tony

[a_p_]

You can try to restart the Management Network on the host. To do this, login to the DCUI (using the ILO console).

If this does not help, enable console access from the DCUI, then logon to the ESXi host (ALT-F1) using the root user and run /sbin/services.sh restart

André

[DSTAVERT]

You can try restarting the management agents form the DCUI console from ILO. Restarting the agents will not affect the running VMs.

[vParker]

Thanks for your reply Andre

I have in fact restarted the management network. but with no success.

will the /sbin/services.sh restart affect the powered on VM?

Thanks

[a_p_]

Restarting the services should not affect the powered on VM's (except they are configured to start/stop with the host). You can also try to restart the Management Agents from the DCUI as mentioned by DSTAVERT.

André

[DSTAVERT]

I would try restarting more than once. Restarting the agents does not affect the running VMs

[uninspired]

Have you used the 'Test Management Network' from within the DCUI? Does it have connectivity? Also, take a peek at the IP address and make sure it's still correct.

[vParker]

So I have tested the Management Network, it passes on every step.  I can ping the blade's IP address from my workstation.  I have also confirmed that the tech support for both local and SSH are enabled and restarted the Management agents countless times.  I am still getting A connection failure occurred (unable to connect to the remote server) from SSH and VClient.  I have also restarted the Management Network many times.

One thing i've learned this morning is that a second nic was added to the host.  I can see it as connected but I am having a terrible time getting its IP address to stick

vmnic0 - 10.x.x.x network.  the management network is here.

vmnic1 - connected and is mapped to a 192.x.x.x network.  - I would like to try and move the Management Network here.  So when trying to do this via the direct console, I go into Configure Management Network > And toggle off the vmnic0 and toggle on the vmnic1.  Then I go down to configure it's IP Address and it won't stick.  after i tell it to save my changes and restart the management network it always go back to 10.x.x.x - frustrating!  what am i doing wrong here.  I need to connect to this blade some how, some way in the vsphere client.

thanks everyone who has replied for your help.

Tony

[vParker]

I am back to the original question.  Does anyone know how to have VMs start automatically when the host starts?  I need into this host ASAP.

Thanks

[mcowger]

Without the host agents working, the API calls that set this value are not accessible, so no, in your situation its not going to happen.