vswif0 interface will not start after 3.0.2 upgrade

[gturcios]

Timeline of events

1 - Upgraded ESX host from 3.0.1 to 3.0.2. Rebooted server and encounter file system errors. Fixed errors by running FSCK.

2 - After rebooting the server several times the disk completely failed forcing a replacement. RAID1 rebuild completed successfully.

3 - Server came back online without errors but now the vswif0 interface will not come online

When I issue the following commands

ifdown vswif0

ifup vswif0

The /var/log/message file shows the following line:

atlesx04 modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module vswif0

Any suggestions?

Thank You.

[sbeaver]

Try this

esxcfg-vswif -l

[gturcios]

output returned from esxcfg-vswif -l command

Name Port Group IP Address Netmask Broadcast

Enabled DHCP

[sbeaver]

Network is wiped and you will need to recreate. What is the output of esxcfg-vswitch -l

[esiebert7625]

You have no vswif0 then, you can use -a to add one and then -i and -n to set the IP/netmask and -e to enable it.

[gturcios]

There is no output when I issue the esxcfg-vswitch -l command

[esiebert7625]

You'll need to re-create that also. This guide has some good detailed steps on re-creating the network config via the command line...

http://www.rtfm-ed.eu/docs/vmwdocs/esx3.x-vc2.x-serviceconsole-guide.pdf

[gturcios]

I managed to recreating the vswif0 interface and the VMkernel interface. But now the VC shows the ESX host as not responding. I can SSH to ESX host from the VC server. The only difference I see now is that the "Service Console" portgroup has a different Internal ID for the portgroup. I assume this does not matter.

At this point I would rather rebuild the ESX host instead of continuing to debug the situation. Is there a simple method to manually revoke the ESX licenses for the ESX host?

[esiebert7625]

Go to Configuration, Licensing in VC and edit the License Type and change it to Unlicensed which will release them.

[gturcios]

When I select the Unlicensed option for the ESX host I get the following message:

Unable to communicate with the remote host, since it is disconnected.

I'm wondering if I can disconnect or remove the ESX host and then try to reconnect it to the VC? Will that permanently hose the licensing? What is the difference between disconnect and remove?

[esiebert7625 · Accepted solution]

If you remove it and re-add it you should be OK. Disconnect just terminates the connection to the server but keeps it licensed and in inventory. Remove actually removes the server from the VC database and releases the licenses.