Changing ESXi Management IP Address via vCenter

[jondehen]

I would like to change the IP address of the VMK for the management network on an ESXi host easily and without downtime to VMs on a separate vSwitch.

The old and new IP addresses are in the same subnet (example below).  It's just a cosmetic update as the network/VLAN/gateway/etc will remain the same:

OLD:  10.1.1.10 /24

NEW: 10.1.1.20 /24

Details:

• 3 ESXi hosts running 6.5
• All IP addresses for host MGMT are static and in the same network
• vCenter installed and running with all three hosts connected
• All hosts have a single VMK for management, in vSwitch0, and all vSwitch0's have 2x NICs (see diagram below)

Question:

Is this as easy as changing it from vCenter by editing the IP on the VMk adapter?  Is there anything else to do besides this?  I would assume making this change through vCenter (instead of from the host itself) will also update vCenter and not cause the host to become disconnected from vCenter.

From my understanding and experience, no VMs (running on a different vSwitch) will be affected.  I know I can login via the console as well to change the IP, but don't see why I would if the change is as simple as I think it is.  I have done this before on a standalone ESXi host but never one connected to vCenter.

Any advice is helpful!  Thanks in advance!

[KabirAli82]

If you try to change the IP of the ESXi management vmkernel, vcenter will roll the change back as it loses connectivity to the host. Best way to do this is described in this KB;

VMware Knowledge Base

[NathanosBlightc]

If you need to provide the highest availability for the managing of your ESXi hosts while the operation changing VMK ports, you can do like something following procedure:

1. Setup a second IP address for the VCSA server from your considered subnet, like this method (multi-homed VCSA).

2. Configured a second VMKernel IP address for each ESXi hosts on that subnet.

3. Check the vCenter Server and ESXi hosts connectivity on the new subnet.

4 Remove the ESXi hosts and add them again to the virtual datacenter via the new VMKernels