Esxi Host IP Changing - and hosted vm's

[oliver_g]

Hello vmMembers,

I am not sure if this is the correct forum for this question, if not please forgive my ignorance.

I (really we) are forced to change our entire network infrastuction IP addressing scheme.

Our current IP range is now in conflict with our corporate network addressing (no one ask us about the change)

We are not planning to upgrade our Esxi hosts at this time - we are hardwore limited to 6.0 currently.

We have several standalone hosts with some linux vms, and some windows vms. I do not see a problem with changing the

IP addresses on the vm's.

What do I need to change/consider/check as far as changing the ip address of an Esxi host? Is there anything I need to conider in

terms of networking  or the virtual network between the host and the vm's that need to be set/checked/edited, etc.

Any links or tips are welcomed.

Thanks,

Oliver G

[Rajhere]

Hi Oliver,

Welcome to community,

For your query, we can address this by two ways.

1. you can create new Virtual networking with the new IP address and then migrate the Existing VMs to this network,

a. how to do this, you can either create standard switches and port groups or just replicate the existing setup and put in the new IP address on this setup, create vSwitches and port groups.

b.once port groups are created you can just change the Vnic of the VMs by going to edit settings.

c. later go to the operating system and add a new interface on the OS, configure the IP address.

This is an easy way of doing the changes.

PRO TIP : this would not cause any disruption to the running services apart from that 5 mins downtime when you do the steps - c.

2. change the existing network IP address,

a. how do we achieve this, once you have the IP address to changes, you have to change them on the portgroups - vmks

b. then change the IP address on the VM , add the new IP address to the guestOS interface.

HERE IS A reference with some beautiful snippets  - How To Configure Vmware Esxi With A Static IP Address

hope this helps.

[NathanosBlightc · Accepted solution]

Hi oliver

Did you setup a vCenter server in your virtualization environment or not?! after answer to this question, everything depends on vSwitches type, are they Standard or Distributed?

However you should know the primary component that you need to change its settings, is the VMKernel port considered for managing each of your ESX hosts. Plan to do it based on following scheme:

1. Planning the new subnet for the host management (VMK IPv4 settings)

2. The vCenter server must have network access to this new subnet, so if you have it, the vCenter server has an IP address belongs to this subnet, or has the related routing to reach them in the new network.

3. It's better to add the 2nd IP addresses to each of these components (vCenter & ESXi hosts) to avoid any possible interruption. In this step, I prefer to setup a new VMK port for each ESXi host and then check the vCenter connectivity and at last remove the old VMK port.

[T180985]

While annoying, this shouldnt be too much of a headache. You will need to create a new port group for the new management vlan then simply add an addition vmkernel adapter with the new IP address then update your DNS records to point to this new IP

If vCenter has difficulty reconnecting to the hosts after a period of time you may need to remove and re-add the hosts but this shouldnt affect VM connectivity

You can do all of the above by PowerCLI which will speed it up greatly

[oliver_g]

Hello Everyone that replied to my post.

This is a wealth of information, and will be helpful when we begin the changes.

We do not have a datacenter in our environment.

We have two VCSA's managing about 5 esxi hosts each, and each host has from 3

to 5 vm's.

As far as the VCSA's are concerned, we plan to make two new ones, shutdown the old ones, establish the

new IP addressing scheme on the new VCSA's, and then add the hosts with vm's and all.

We have about 4 standalone hosts with from 2 to 5 vm's on each, will have to review the vlan/virtual network config on the hosts, and duplicate or

change as required.

I will have to re-read your replys and carefully plan a strategy. All the information is helpful.

Thanks So much,

Oliver G