Error in log

[KoryL]

Sep 30 19:08:01 vmkernel: 0:01:22:05.364 cpu2:4098)Tcpip_Vmk: 143: arp: unknown hardware address format (0x45b8)

I get this error about 50 times a second in the /var/log/messages Server Log. Some times it says "cup2:14777" and other times it says "cup 3:8245" but thats the only

I am running a Dell Poweredge SC1420 with ESXi4.0 loaded on a USB drive. I have 4 SATA drives in it and a NIC and a CDrom, 2 Dual Core Xeon CPUs.

I have 3 VM's running Server 2003. Everything has been running fine sense I installed everything 2 weeks ago, but today for some reason all my VMs died and I couldn't connect to the host using the vSphere client. I could navagate around at the physical console (which is how I restarted the system which after the restart I was able to connect using vSphere and get my VMs up and running again, but i have no idea how longs these errors have been going on and I don't know what they mean.

Any thoughts?

[DSTAVERT]

Hardware problem with the NIC or Switch?

[DSTAVERT]

Try a new cable and switch port.

[DSTAVERT]

Are there MAC addresses in the logs that might also be associated with that error. It may be a problem with another NIC on your network?

[KoryL]

I just tried a new cable and that didn't help, I'm going to try a new port in a sec here, and now, there are no MAC addresses in this log, it is just that same line over and over and over again.

[KoryL]

I just tried another port on the switch and that doesn't seem to help either.

I'm shutting down my VMs and going to restart the whole system here.

Any other ideas??

[DSTAVERT]

Those messages indicate broken ethernet packets somewhere. Either the NIC on the server or some other machine on the network. I suppose it is possible that they come from a VM. Have a look at the event logs in the VM's???

[KoryL]

Currently all my VMs are powered down and I'm still seeing the messages. But i will boot them up and check the event log on them.

Can you think of anything else to check??

And thans for your help so far!!!

[DSTAVERT · Accepted solution]

If you have a spare switch plug the host into the spare switch. Don't connect that to anywhere. Check the logs again.

[KoryL]

I think you helped me fix it. I tried a seperate switch with nothing but the host connected and no more errors. I pluged in the PC that I have the vSphere client on and logged in and still no errors in the logs. So I plugged the host back into the main network and started narrowing it down and figured out it was my router. It seemed that it was blasting out broadcast packets. I restarted the router and all is good now.

Thanks for the help!!!!!!!!!

[DSTAVERT]

Most welcome. Glad I was able to help.