VMware Cloud Community
rdvanorman
Contributor
Contributor

VM Nic Sleeping

VMWare 5

VM - Windows 2008 R2 64bit

Network Adapter - VMXNET 3

We just set up a new server a few weeks ago.  For some reasone the NIC seems to be going to sleep, we can't ping, attach to the server, or access any of the applications.  As soon as I open a console session from VCenter the NIC starts responding.  We've tried removing and reinstalling the NIC,  Removed VMTools and reinstalled.  Checked the power settings for the server and NIC.  We're at the point of just rebuilding it but I'd like to see if there's anything else you might suggest before we go down that route.

Reply
0 Kudos
15 Replies
beckham007fifa

strange! indeed. What is your NIC setting on the window 2k8 server, have you checked some option for going to sleep when idle? check the nic settings and is its your vc server?

Regards, ABFS
Reply
0 Kudos
rickardnobel
Champion
Champion

It seems very strange indeed. Does this happen all the time the VM gets inactive?

If you leave a command prompt inside the VM with some ping -t against some external address, does this happen?

My VMware blog: www.rickardnobel.se
Reply
0 Kudos
rdvanorman
Contributor
Contributor

Yes.. we've checked the settings on the NIC configuration and actually unchecked the "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" option.  We haven't had to do this on any of our other servers (I actually didn't know it was there).

Reply
0 Kudos
beckham007fifa

try puting the vm on other vswitch....

Regards, ABFS
Reply
0 Kudos
rdvanorman
Contributor
Contributor

If we set up an active ping on the machine then it will stay up..

Reply
0 Kudos
rickardnobel
Champion
Champion

rdvanorman wrote:

If we set up an active ping on the machine then it will stay up..

Interesting. And if you put an outside device to have a continuous ping to the VM?

My VMware blog: www.rickardnobel.se
Reply
0 Kudos
rdvanorman
Contributor
Contributor

I don't believe we tried that...  Just to be clear it takes hours for this issue to occur..  It just brings an unreliable situation to the server.  It can run for a day without issue but then bam.. its down.  We've checked the event logs on the server and its clean..  

Reply
0 Kudos
beckham007fifa

sorry to say this but It could be because of virus attack also. I am not sure that its the same case with you but once I have faced such issue with my physical server in which the virus was making the network choke and it was running in the programs before the server gets bootup it also corrupted firewall of the server. My case it was win 2003 but i would recommend you to have a complete scan and check the process once....

Regards, ABFS
Reply
0 Kudos
abirhasan
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Is there any broadcast issue? You can check using wireshark software you network traffic or is there any broadcast issue.

abirhasan 
Reply
0 Kudos
merc123
Contributor
Contributor

I have a Windows XP VM that was P2V'ed that is doing this very thing.  I have all of the screen savers turned off, hibernation, and have power management to always on for everything.  It is also statically configured for an IP so I wouldn't think a DHCP lease would be expiring.

I can't ping or remote to the machine until I bring up the console.  Then it starts responding immediately.  I don't have a NIC "power" option so I'm stumped on what is it.     

Reply
0 Kudos
merc123
Contributor
Contributor

It seems to have fixed itself.  We have not had any issues with it.  

Reply
0 Kudos
Jonnys3
Contributor
Contributor

I have exactly the same issue with a NIC on a SLES VMware client. The SLES client has x2 NICs. One accepts connectins all the time; the second appears to exhibit the same behaviours as reported in this dicussion. Does anyone know what the root cause of this is as it's driving me insame? It seems to be a common problem with a number of such discussions in the vmware community but no real anwer.

Reply
0 Kudos
CurVoOlicO
Contributor
Contributor

Hello guys!

Did anyone have any news on this?

I have exactly the same problem with lots of VMs.... really annoying and terrible on production environments!

BRs

Reply
0 Kudos
Jonnys3
Contributor
Contributor

Unfortunately I never got an answer to this issue.

It seems that the only way to keep the NIC from falling asleep is to send some traffic out along the interface to keep it alive. We have the Nagios monitoring tool sending its results every minute down our affected interface which keeps it alive. I can only suggest you schedule some sort of ping to run down the interface every minute or so...

Not an ideal solution, but until somebody recognizes this as an issue, I don't see there's much choice

Reply
0 Kudos
merc123
Contributor
Contributor

Mine have seemed to resolve themselves.  One thing I did notice is that I had originally set them up at E1000 and then swapped to a VMXNET2 ethernet adapter.  Both have some how changed to "flexible" and being the only IT guy I would have been the one to make the change.

All of my other server VM's maintained their adapter.  I have noticed that Guest OS has made a difference and if they are Win XP then they have problems with the NIC sleeping.  If they are a Microsoft Server OS then they do not.

Reply
0 Kudos