How to check which NIC takes over when Primary nic fails?

[depping]

What if I have the following setup:

Two nics in a vswitch, ip based load balancing, on the phys.switch side it's a 2gb channel.

I have two other nics in standby mode, on the phys.switch side it's also a 2gb channel.

when the one of the nics of the first channel fails, does one of the other nics which are standby take-over or will it wait until the complete channel failed?

I guess it will take-over, but in VC there's no way to check if it's actually active when you pull a network-cord. And I can't find a commandline way to check if another NIC has taken the place of the failed nic.

My questions:

what's the default behaviour? (in my opinion the highest takes over)

and how can I check if any nic has taken over?

thanks,

[Leo_Smith]

not at work but have you tried ifconfig?

See which vmnic status are UP

vcenter also shows u this under the configuration networking there will be too nics connected to the vswitch and one will show it is standby. when u pull the cable on the active nic the standby will change satus (link state should go to 1000 full or whatever u have the link state set to)

[depping]

anyone who has got a clue about this?

is is possible to put 2 channels in an active / standby setup?

[Chris_S_UK]

if you run ESXTOP and hit N (to switch to the network counters), you can see which vmnics are processing network traffic. This should help you see what is going on.

Chris

[Texiwill]

Hello,

You have 4 active Links in your NIC Team? Do each point to a different pSwitch? Or do you just have 2 active Links and 2 failover Links? The first, 4 Active Links while doable is not really recommended as you could get some serious delays when a pSwitch fails. If it is the later there should not be huge issue.

Best regards,

Edward

[depping]

to be more specific:

we've got 4 nics for the VM network and 2 for service console + vmotion.

the 4 will be in the following setup:

Phys switch 1 - channel 1 - nic 0 - vswitch 0 - active

Phys switch 1 - channel 1 - nic 1 - vswitch 0 - active

Phys switch 2 - channel 2 - nic 2 - vswitch 0 - standby

Phys switch 2 - channel 2 - nic 3 - vswitch 0 - standby

so we have 2 channels of 2gb. i want to know what happens if nic1 fails.

[pcomo]

Hi,

normally relating to the virtual center tab of ESX-> configuration -> Networking -> edit vswitch -> Nic Teaming you can see yours active and standby nics and if one active nic failed, the first standby nic in list take it place.

[VirtualKenneth · Accepted solution]

we've got 4 nics for the VM network and 2 for service

console + vmotion.

the 4 will be in the following setup:

Phys switch 1 - channel 1 - nic 0 - vswitch 0 -

active

Phys switch 1 - channel 1 - nic 1 - vswitch 0 -

active

Phys switch 2 - channel 2 - nic 2 - vswitch 0 -

standby

Phys switch 2 - channel 2 - nic 3 - vswitch 0 -

standby

so we have 2 channels of 2gb. i want to know what

happens if nic1 fails.

Well AFAIK: if nic1 fails nothing will happen since the VSwitch isn't aware of the fact that you want to run a 2gb link.

[depping]

i will be testing this specific setup friday to see how vmware handles this. will let you guys know what happens.

[depping]

Indeed Vliegenmepper, VMware isn't channel aware and if 1 of the 2 nics of the Channel fails a nic of the standby channel will become active. the only way to check this behavior is via ESXTOP, type N, and S 2. Than you will see which nic handles the traffic, if you pull a cord you will notice that a standby nic takes over. So to have a Channel in standby mode you will have to have this channel setup on a different phys. switch.

a shame vmware isn't channel aware, but i guess with the upcoming cisco vswitch this will change.

[kenconrad2009]

Simliar Question to this one. We are also Setting up as much redundancy as we can. V3.5 u4 and we have 10 NIC's. Want to have mutiple physical adapters for each Vswitch but we are also connected to 2 core physical cisco switches. Want to have standby for the 2nd physical switch incase we have a hardware failure of the actual switch.

Anyway that anyone is aware of to configure the nic's in standy mode or any other way to allow 4 NIC's to be in the vswitch with the 2 active NIC's connected to the active core switch and 2 in standby mode pointing to the 2nd Physcial switch ?

Any suggestions would be appreciated