HA/VMotion name resolution

[alecprior]

We've just moved from ESX3.5 to ESXi4.1

We have an isolated VLAN interface for vmotion traffic which has the vmotion and management traffic boxes ticked. There is an interface on the main LAN that also has the "Management Traffic" tickbox checked so it can talk to vCenter.

We're running into problems where the whole cluster can't locate a primary HA node. I'm wondering if this is because we don't have the isolated IPs listed in DNS, just the IPs that vCenter uses to connect to the hosts. Previously we had them in the hosts file on ESX but obviously this isn't possible with ESXi. Could it be that we don't need Management Traffic ticked on two interfaces?

[nofragger]

Well High Availability sends a check to other esx hosts to check if they are alive ( called Heartbeat )

It does this every 5 seconds, and will use the service console IP addresses which has to be in a DNS server.

Even if it was possible to use the host file, you don't want to edit them every tome you add a ESX host.

About Vmotion, i don't know if it uses the service console network to resolve but you can test it by using vmkping on the vmotion network. If it works then you don't need to have a vmotion network in a network with a DNS server present.

Conclusion, I say always use a Primary and a Secondary DNS server.

[kjb007]

Without DNS, you will be in trouble. You definitely need to have some sort of resolution in place for HA to work correctly. You can still use hosts file in ESXi, you just have to enable the tech support mode ssh, and edit the file in /etc/hosts. You can enable that option by first making sure you have a password set on your ESXi console, then with the vi client, connect to host, configuration tab, security profile, and enable and start ssh. Then ssh in and set your hosts file entries. In absence of DNS, this would be the only reliable option.

vExpert

VMware Communities Moderator

vmwise.com / @vmwise

-KjB

[Dave_Mishchenko]

You don't have to enable TSM to access hosts - you can use vifs from the vCLI to copy the file from and to the host.




Dave

VMware Communities User Moderator

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[alecprior]

I feel the need to clarify.

There's one service console on our main LAN, and those addresses are in DNS.

There's also a service console (also with VMotion) on the isolated network, these addresses aren't in DNS.

Should I remove the "service console" (whose replacement is the "management traffic" tickbox, right?) from the isolated VMotion network?

[nofragger]

In my VM farms we don't have a service console in the VMotion network, so my guess is that it isn't necessary to create a service console in de VMotion network.