So one day I decide to move my ESXi install from local disks to USB flash. I find out about PowerCLI and Get-VMHostFirmware, so I say "OK, this should be painless...".
I get the .tgz, fire up the installer, install to SD card, and reboot. Put the system in maintenance mode, and upload the saved config. The system automatically reboots.
Well... there's a nice surprise - a completely BLANK DCUI! 😐
What's worse is that I cannot find a way to access the server anymore - as you can see below, all options related to management network are grayed out:
OK, I say - not a problem. Just a glitch. I'll try again... Fire up installer, reinstall, upload config package - same result!
A sane person would have probably given up right about now. But I just had to try again. Same result!
Since this is a lab deployment, it will be (reasonably) painless to reinstall and reconfigure. But still, I'd like to know if anyone has come across this before. A quick search of the Internet didn't turn up any relevant results.
And, of course, I'd like to know how one could recover from such a scenario.
Thank you!
It seems that the esx.conf file is not linked somehow, if you havent tried, can you provide to reset system configuration to create a new esx.conf and check if you are facing the same issue.
Hi!
Could you go to "Troubleshooting Options" -> "Enable ESXi Shell" and "ALT+F1". Then login to host and run following command:
esxcli network nic list
Verify that your ESXi has identified your network cards properly. Example output is following:
Name PCI Device Driver Link Speed Duplex MAC Address MTU Description
------ ------------- ------ ---- ----- ------ ----------------- ---- --------------------------------------------------------------
vmnic0 0000:002:00.0 e1000 Up 1000 Full 00:0c:29:23:b6:9b 1500 Intel Corporation 82545EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper)
vmnic1 0000:002:01.0 e1000 Up 1000 Full 00:0c:29:23:b6:a5 1500 Intel Corporation 82545EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper)
vmnic2 0000:002:02.0 e1000 Up 1000 Full 00:0c:29:23:b6:af 9000 Intel Corporation 82545EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper)
vmnic3 0000:002:03.0 e1000 Up 1000 Full 00:0c:29:23:b6:b9 1500 Intel Corporation 82545EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper)
vmnic4 0000:002:04.0 e1000 Up 1000 Full 00:0c:29:23:b6:c3 1500 Intel Corporation 82545EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper)
vmnic5 0000:002:05.0 e1000 Up 1000 Full 00:0c:29:23:b6:cd 1500 Intel Corporation 82545EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper)
If not check that your image contains correct drivers for your nic.
-Hannu
I faced the same issue once.I tried a reboot(warm boot) which resolved this .
Hope this helps!!
-SatyS
@HannuBalk: The NIC drivers are there - remember that in order to push the .tgz backup file to the host, I had to go into the DCUI after install and configure network connectivity.
@zXi_Gamer: That would most likely help. However, it still leaves me with the question - why was it impossible to restore a backup, and what should one do in order to restore such a backup after a reinstall?
I rebooted the host repeatedly, and I performed the entire reinstall/restore_backup procedure 3 times. Every single time with the same result - so it was most definitely reproducible.
In the meantime, I had to reinstall and reconfigure the host (not too many spares in my lab, so I couldn't afford to keep this host down ). But the question remains
Well, some of the reason, I think would be the esx.conf file being corrupted over copy or was moved while updating or worst case, autobackup was triggered when the migration was happening. While, I truly cant fix on a specific reason, you can possibly try out to look for difference between /bootbank/state.tgz>local.tgs>esx.conf and /altbootbank//state.tgz>local.tgs>esx.conf file and is the config is same, you can replace the esx.conf to get your settings back
Also do make a check, in case if your host is put in maintenance mode, by vim-cmd hostsvc/maintenance_mode_exit