Problem using multiple NIC's

[kllevalley]

I am having trouble with using multiple NIC's with ESX, I have 2 NIC cards each has 2 ports. The port vmnic0 is on and has a static IP that allows me to connect using vshpere and thats all well and good.

The problem arises when I turn on any of the other NIC's, my connection on the vshpere client shuts down, and I can not get back to it unless I go to the ESX server and disable the NIC in the console there. How can I turn these other network ports on without losing my main connection that has the static IP? I can't find resources about this but it seems like people do it easily.

Ultimately what I am trying to do is run half of my VM's on one segment and the other half on another segment, then also split up printer segments on each VM to be half/half as well.

thanks, I hope I described my problem well enough.

[AndreTheGiant]

How you turn on the second nic? Are you add to the same vSwitch? Are your creating a new vSwitch?

Are the two nics connected to the same physical switch?

Be sure that the nic is working and use this command to see the status:

esxcfg-nics -l

Andre

[bulletprooffool]

Verify that the second NIC does not have an IP assigned . . or at least the the IP assigned is not in use elsewhere on the network.

Are you creating a new vSwitch?

Is it vmKernel or Virtual machine port?

If you create it as a Virtual Machine port - you should not get any errors.

Also, check that you are not specifying a new Default gateway when you create the second vSwitch - this would direct the management traffic over a new, possibly invalid route.

[kllevalley]

There are 2 cards each card has 2 ports,

the way I try to add the network adapters is in vsphere i go

Configuration Tab > Networking > Properties > Network Adapters Tab > Add

and then follow the procedures to add vmnic1, but as soon as I turn it on I lose connection and have to go back to the physical esx machine and turn off that adapter in esx before I can connect back to vsphere.

I do not assign any IP's other than the static IP I put in for me to access the esx from vsphere.