ESX 3 Locked out of service console - can't ping server

[lewisjr]

I was trying to add a second nic to the virtual switch on our server. The first nic is a single vlan. Our second nic has a trunk of all vlans.

When I added the second nic to the virtual switch, I lost connection to the host esx server and can no longer ping it.

The VMs on the server are still working, except for one. It is off the network apparently, even though it is using the same port group as the rest of the VMs.

Is there an easy way to make this work, or can someone tell me how to remove the second nic from the vswitch and make this work again?

[esiebert7625 · Accepted solution]

Login to the service console and use esxcfg-vswitch -U --unlink= to remove a pnic from a vswitch. Do esxcfg-vswitch -l to get the pnic name first.

Here's a good guide for this or you can just type esxcfg-vswitch to get the syntax and options.

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

esxcfg-vswitch \[options] [vswitch\[:ports]]

-a|--add Add a new virtual switch.

-d|--delete Delete the virtual switch.

-l|--list List all the virtual switches.

-L|--link=pnic Set pnic as an uplink for the vswitch.

-U|--unlink=pnic Remove pnic from the uplinks for the vswitch.

-p|--pg=portgroup Specify a portgroup for operation

Use ALL for operation to work on all portgroups

-v|--vlan=id Set vlan id for portgroup specified by -p

0 would disable the vlan

-c|--check Check to see if a virtual switch exists.

Program outputs a 1 if it exists, 0 otherwise.

-A|--add-pg=name Add a new portgroup to the virtual switch.

-D|--del-pg=name Delete the portgroup from the virtual switch.

-C|--check-pg=name Check to see if a portgroup exists. Program

outputs a 1 if it exists, 0 otherwise.

-r|--restore Restore all virtual switches from the configuration file

(FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY).

-h|--help Show this message.

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Thanks, Eric

Visit my website: http://vmware-land.com

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