BootBank and AltBootbank

[aiea96701]

we have an ESXi4.1 server that we believe suffered a crash.  When we powered it back up, the vClient was displaying that the license was an Evaluation license.   The networking was as if it were just installed.....one vSwitch with SC and VM port group assignment.  No VMs but the VMs are still on the datastore...so, no major loss.

Was wondering.   I recall that someone had once said that if there was a configuration issue (ie corruption) that this could happen and if so, a restore from the BootBank might work to restore the original networking and configuration.   Is that true?   if so, how would I do that?

[jdptechnc]

Per chance...

If you look at the boot.cfg file in /bootbank, is the following option enabled for kernelopt?

kernelopt=auditMode=TRUE

If so, your server is running in Audit Mode for some reason, and it will reset settings to factory every time it reboots.  I can't think of any other reason, offhand, why your entire configuration would have cleared.  The above is the only thing I have encountered in the past.

The /altbootbank should contain backup images (the kernel and whatever modules before a prior Host Update is what I have in mine).