No network on all new VMs. Old VMs working fine.

[abeleski]

I have been cold migrating a number of Vms from one standalone ESX 3.01 host to another host running ESX3.02 with VCenter 2.01.

Yesterday when I moved one VM and I brought it up on the new server it started up but it was complaining that there was no network "A network cable is unplugged". I then saw that this was the first VM I have setup in that particular vlan (port group) and thought that perhaps it is a trunking problem but after looking at the physical switch and the vSwitch everything was setup correctly.

After doing some more tests I realised that it has nothing to do with the VM being on that particular vlan. ANY new VMs simply don't get any network no matter what vlan they are on. All the rest of the VMs, 28 of them, are still working fine. Even Vm's which I built directly on the new ESX 3.02 server dont get any network.

So then that made me think about the vswitch and sure enough it was set to be a 24 port switch. So I changed it to a 56 port vswitch with virtual center and was sure this was the problem but it hasn't fixed the problem.

Do you need to reboot after you change the number of ports?

My other question is why if the vswitch was 24 port was I then able to get more than 24 VMs running on it?

Maybe the problem is something different alltogether.

Someone please help. I am not having much luck from Vmware support. They have asked me to check the physical switch to make sure trunking is turned on which it is and have had no response since from them.

Thank you

[RParker]

I have this problem from time to time, and usually it goes back to simple problem in VI.

I have to edit settings in guest, temporarily change the network to something else, click ok, then go back and change it back to original setting.

Even though it LOOKS like its set properly, I get the "network cable not connected message". Not sure what really causes it.. it has happened less frequent of late, but that's how I fix it.

[abeleski]

Yeah I have tried that. I tried to move the VM to different networks, removing the virtual nic etc etc but just didnt work at all for me.

I am on the phone with vmware right now, but after 15 mins on the phone it is not looking promising. I don't think he has any idea as to what the problem is either.

\*sigh*

[abeleski]

Well it looks like you need to reboot the host for the change to the number of ports on the vSwitch to take place.

Looks like I need to schedule some downtime.

[tsugliani]

You need to reboot your ESX for a modified vswitch port numbers (or you will have some strange behavior until then)

But if i'm right the numbers of ports specify the number of portgroups you can "create/use" on your vSwitch.

So if you were using lots of portgroups (more than 20 for example counting the COS, vmkernel, etc.) it could be your issue.

But if you were using only 1 portgroup for your VMs, it "shouldn't" be the issue.

Hope this explanation helps and is correct

[abeleski]

geez I hope you are not right or I will be very annoyed at vmware tech support. I have just had to raise hell to get downtime on all the VMs so I can bounce the host.

I only have 5 portgroups on that particular vSwitch plus the service console. Then I have a second VSwitch with the VmKernel and another Service Console.

The description in the vSwitch looking at it through VC does say "Number of Ports" and not portgroups.

This is happening tonight so I will let you all know who was right.

[abeleski]

Ok so the number of ports on a vswitch actually does refer to the amount of VMs you can connect to that vswitch and not the amount of portgroups. Rebooting the server did fix my problem.

Interesting to know that by default if looking through VI a vswitch is assigned 24ports. This is not "really" the case. The vswitch is actually assigned 32ports but some ports are reserved for the vmkernel.

In my case i stopped getting network on all additional VMs after 28 VMs on the vswitch which threw me off.