Can only ping VM's on the same host

[kingict]

Hi,

I have an ESXi 3.5 host, managed directly via vSphere client (no vcenter). I have a strange problem regarding the network connection - from time to time (once, twice a day sometimes) all virtual machines on the host becomes unavailable - ie. cannot ping it, canot use RDP etc. I log onto the machine using Console from vSphere client and the network connection looks fine - its showing that it has connectivity and all the IP information is OK. Also, it can ping other servers on the same ESX host but nothing else - cannot ping gateway, DNS, DC nothing......If I change its network adapter in the virtual machine settings - just change it to something and change back immdiately, it starts working again! And after some time, if happens again...

The setup is as following - the physical server is HP blade server (c7000 chasis) connected via 6120 G/XG blade switch to the rest of the network. On the physical switch itself, trunking is configured (there are 3 different VLANs). Also, the vSwitch configuration is pretty much the default one and there are port groups created for each VLAN (plus VMkernel port for management network)....

I'm out of ideas...checked several cofiguration settings that might cause the problem but found nothing concrete...any hel is appreciated

D

[beckham007fifa]

this is strange, is it with every vm on the host or on some particular vm?

also are you using iscsi?

[kingict]

sometimes its only one VM other times its all VM's on the host...yes I'm using iSCSI...

[beckham007fifa]

iscsi don't work always great without vcenter, get vcenter license and proceed.

[kingict]

I actually already have vCenter licence and will install it (probably tonight) but not sure why would iSCSI make this sort of issues?

[kingict]

just an update on this issue - I joined the ESXi host to the vCenter cluster and the issue is still there - virtual machines cannot be contacted from the rest of the network (ping only works within ESXi host)...this is really driving me crazy...

[beckham007fifa]

check from network switch end and from storage switch end as well. Use esxtop to check if there is something fishy with it.