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WellsITman
Contributor
Contributor

ESX 4.1 U1 - Guest network stops responding

Hi All,

Our system has been working fine for 8 months without any issue until installing ESX 4.1 U1 and the latest network driver. We have 2 x HP DL580 G7 each with an inbuilt NC375i Quad port NIC and 2 x NC375T Quad port NICs (using driver 400.4.0.585) - so thats 12 NICS per host. 4 NICs per host are teamed together for our production LAN. We have 2 Cisco/Linksys Layer 2+ switches which each take 2 connections from each host, and are linked together using with a 4 port trunk using LAC.

Issue: We have approximately 24 Guests - Windows Server 2003 or 2008 mostly. If we migrate or restart a guest machine, the networking on the guest stops working - we cannot ping to or from the guest. If we then shutdown the guest, remove the network interface and re-add it, start up the guest, the network then works fine again. The only thing that happens from removing the NIC and re-adding it is the MAC address changes.

I dont even know where to start at looking at this. Anyone have any ideas?   :smileyconfused:

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12 Replies
idle-jam
Immortal
Immortal

hi, see if this is something related to your problem. http://blogs.vmware.com/kb/2010/06/nic-is-missing-in-my-virtual-machine.html

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WellsITman
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

Nothing like this. the NIC is still there and shows in the guest, but no traffic passes thru it - bytes sent/received hardly increases (a few bytes do show - it doesnt say 0)

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AndreTheGiant
Immortal
Immortal

Have you tried to change load balacing mode to a simple Port ID policy?

Andre

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
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WellsITman
Contributor
Contributor

thanks but the Network Load balancing settings are already set to Port ID

switch.jpg

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AndreTheGiant
Immortal
Immortal

If you use this team policy you have to set with ports as normal ports, not Etherchannel ports.

Andre

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
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WellsITman
Contributor
Contributor

Andre,

Sorry my description of our setup may have been a bit confusing. The VMware NICs are connected to the 2 physical network switches using normal ports. The LAC is used for trunking the 2 physical switches together.

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AndreTheGiant
Immortal
Immortal

Have you check spanning tree settings?

Host ports are in fast mode?

STP is rapid?

Maybe you can try to start only with one switch to see if it is a network problem.

Andre

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
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WellsITman
Contributor
Contributor

All the spanning tree settings are set to rapid and working fine.

The servers were working fine for 6 months running Vsphere 4.1. This silly guest network issue has only started after installing U1 and installing the latest network driver (400.4.0.585) hasnt solved the problem.

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AndreTheGiant
Immortal
Immortal

If on network side is all fine, I suggest to call the VMware support to check your issue.

Andre

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
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J-D
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

hey, were you able to solve this?

We have this issue too on our DL580 G7's. They have the nc375i as on-board nics. We added a quad port NC364T and 2 dual port NC382T's. I am not sure yet but it seems mostly with the nc375i that we an issue.

something I just discovered: using a browser towards the ESX 4.1 u1 host and downloading the vSphere client is a lot slower than on other hosts.

Do you have the same thing?

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mfillmore32
Contributor
Contributor

We are also running into this same problem.  The Guest VM has network connectivity to VMs on the same host, but not to anything else.  Removing and readding the card fixes the problem but is a real pain when bringing down our whole infrastructure.  Anyone figure out a fix for this?

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Mouhamad
Expert
Expert

Here is the solution for everyone.

http://bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&taskId=110&prodSe...

SUPPORT COMMUNICATION - CUSTOMER ADVISORY

Document ID: c02964542

Version: 5

Advisory: (Revision) HP ProLiant and HP StorageWorks Systems: HP NC375i, NC375T, NC522m, NC522SFP, NC523SFP, CN1000Q Network Adapters - FIRMWARE UPGRADE REQUIRED to Avoid the Loss and Automatic Recovery of Ethernet Connectivity or Adapter Unresponsiveness
NOTICE: The information in this document, including products and software versions, is current as of the Release Date. This document is subject to change without notice.

Release Date: 2012-02-10

Last Updated: 2012-02-10

IMPORTANT : The network adapter firmware and driver upgrades provided in the Resolution are required to prevent the loss and recovery of Ethernet connectivity, or adapter unresponsiveness requiring a reboot to recover, from occurring. HP recommends performing these upgrades at the customer's earliest possible convenience. Neglecting to perform the recommended action and not performing the recommended resolution could result in the potential for subsequent errors to occur.

The HP network adapters listed in the Scope section (below) may encounter either of the following:

  • The adapter may temporarily lose Ethernet connectivity, and then automatically recover.

OR

  • The adapter may stop responding, requiring a server reboot to recover the operation of the adapter.

Note: There is a low probability of this occurring when operating under a normal network worklo

VCP-DCV, VCP-DT, VCAP-DCD, VSP, VTSP
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