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AndyE
Contributor
Contributor

ESXi 3.5 Guest losing network connection

Hello

I noticed for the 2nd time now after the recent patching of my ESXi and the vmtools, that a guest all of a sudden loses connection to the network.

The problem does not occur directly after patching however, the ESX were patched 2 weeks ago. And the 2nd case happend just today.

Disable/Enable the LAN Adapter within the guest OS (both servers run 2003 R2 32bit Std) "fixes" it.

Since there is no evidence other than the "proximity" to a migration operation, im pretty clueless what could cause that,

but am nevertheless a bit worried. This never happend before.

Any ideas what i could check, the "Tasks and Events" in VC doesnt show any problem entries, nor does the eventlog of the guests ?

kind regards

Andy

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Gerrit_Lehr
Commander
Commander

Are the VMs using the vmxnet driver? If not you should update them since using the wrong network driver typically creates the discribed behaviour.

Kind Regards,

Gerrit Lehr

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Kind regards, Gerrit Lehr If you found this or other information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful".
AndyE
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for that tip.

Ive used the "flexible" adapter in both guests in fact its used in all vm's (since they come from the same "old" template).

Changed it now to the "enhanced vmxnet". So, i should update all of the vm's then?

thanks

Andy

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Gerrit_Lehr
Commander
Commander

You should have a look at the driver that is installed in Windows, what is is called? It should be something like Vmware Enhanced VMXNet adapter.

Kind Regards,

Gerrit Lehr

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Kind regards, Gerrit Lehr If you found this or other information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful".
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AndyE
Contributor
Contributor

Just compared 2 machines

Name in VC

Adapter Name in Windows

Driver Name

flexible

Vmware Accelerated AMD PCNet Adapter

vmxnet.sys (2.0.3.6)

enhanced vmxnet

Vmware PCI Ethernet Adapter

vmxnet.sys (2.0.3.6)

The "flexible" adapter has a lot more configuration options within windows.

kind regards

Andy

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Gerrit_Lehr
Commander
Commander

Hm, from my experience it should be fine as long as it is vmxnet.sys (2.0.3.6).

Kind Regards,

Gerrit Lehr

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Kind regards, Gerrit Lehr If you found this or other information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful".
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