unable to connect to server running Vmware esxi 6.7.0 build 8169922

[chrisstubbs]

I know this is not the place to come for this immediately but I am in desperate need and having a hard time finding technical support for this. We had an event at my business that caused the server to stop communicating with the rest of the company. Server was installed and running with the version of VMware listed above. I'm not 100% sure but from what I can see it's possible that the virtual machine that is needed for everyone to connect to on this server seems to have stopped running and I cannot get it to reboot. Restarting the computer has not helped and going into the command prompt details to restart individual servers doesn't seem to be restarting it. I am at a loss and having a hard time finding who I can contact directly through vmware for support or even how to. Help someone can give me in this regard would be very helpful as I have quite a number of people unable to connect to their business system and the person who was the technical guru for this is no longer with the company.

[a_p_]

Please provide some information that might help in trying to resolve the issue:

1. what kind of an event happened? A power outage, ...?
2. can you ping the ESXi host?
3. if yes, are you able to access the hosts web interface?
4. does the host have free disk space on the datastore(s)?

André

[Kinnison]

Comment removed...

[chrisstubbs]

Thank you for the Reply . Exactly sure what happened just all of a sudden we lost all communication to the outside world, so no phone, internet or internal server communication.  internet wound up being OK, so after resetting things on the firewall, all else was working, but the server is no longer being found via the VM name we all access it through or through the IP stataic address we have had to access it for service remotely.  after poking around on quite a lot of the settings within the VMware software I think we are seeing that the virtual machine that is named as the one we all need to connect to might possibly not be running. When I look at the machines that are running in the settings it shows other machines but not the ones that we connect to on a regular basis. Going through steps within the software to try to power on those virtual machines keeps coming up with a failure to power up.

Not being technically minded with this sort of thing and the person who set it up is no longer with us for quite a long time and not available for maintenance, my biggest concern at this point is assuming that I somehow can't get past the interface to fix this problem I'm wondering if I needed to get an entirely new server and transfer the drives over if I can use the new server without vmware or am I stuck with that being installed and having to deal with getting through it somehow?

Of course I would much rather fix the existing problem that seems to just be a communication between the server and everyone else possibly because of this virtual machine not being powered on internally

[chrisstubbs]

1. what kind of an event happened? A power outage, ...?  Not 100% sure. Working fine and then all of a sudden lost all network connectivity to the outside world as well as to the internal server. Seems whatever happened affected our firewall which shut down wall communication. We got the firewall back up and running and reset we were able to connect to everything except the server which has the business software on it. From what we can tell it is possible that the virtual machine that we connect to within that server that is running vmware is possibly not powered up but we have not had any success getting it to power up through various commands that we've tried directly on the machine.
2.  
3. can you ping the ESXi host?  Apologies as I am not technically minded in the person who set this up is no longer with us. On the splash screen that comes up on the server it shows the IP address that we have set as a static address to be able to access that machine remotely but that IP address is no longer contactable.  I know it is the address I have used before because I have the address and login and password saved on my other desktop but we cannot get to that IP address any longer and not sure how that communication stopped or how to get it restarted.
4. if yes, are you able to access the hosts web interface?  That is the problem. Able to get to that static IP and log in I can no longer get to that interface through my browser which I had done previously although not for quite a while. It seems to be that communication has stopped somehow Could this somehow be related to that virtual machine not being powered up therefore that IP address not being accessible?
5. does the host have free disk space on the datastore(s)?  By going through a different commands with a technician I believe he was able to see that we did not run out of memory and we have plenty of room on the drive for things to still run.

I know this is a free version of this software and is well out of service but I am quite desperate to have someone get in touch with me that can step me through some things to look and see if this is salvageable or not. Not having a lot of luck going through the vmware website finding any way to get a service call or pay for service on this but now I'm thinking it might not even be available and not sure exactly how to turn or how to proceed in order to get our system up and running.

[a_p_]

From what you explain, it sounds more like a network issue rather than an issue with the ESXi host.
Did you already check the physical switch(es) to which the ESXi host is connected to?
Do you have other systems in the same IP subnet as the ESXi host? Are they reachable?

André

[chrisstubbs]

Unfortunately this is where it starts getting beyond my ability to understand exactly what to do. When you say the physical switches to the host I assume you mean the power button on the computer itself. I have rebooted the machine through the interface as well as hard restarted it manually using the power switch and have had no luck there..

Static IP on the ESXi host is 192.168.1.11

I have many other PC in the system on 192.168.1.xx  addresses still working

It seems to me like something either got corrupted on that VM machine or somehow it is turned off and can't turn back on and is not letting me connect to it any longer. I used to be able to connect to it either through the above IP address and a login and password, or I could connect to it from my desktop using remote desktop connection using the name of the VM machine and a separate password on that machine to let me in and see a standard windows server screen which is what that VM machine is running. Now both of those excess points don't exist or can't be found so it seems like somehow that VM is turned off or corrupted and not letting me in.

[a_p_]

What I meant is the network switch, i.e. the ESXi host's network cables which are connected to that network switch.

André

[Kinnison]

Hi,

Start bringing that technician in at the very least to determine that your network infrastructure is (really) working as it should otherwise you go nowhere, a network infrastructure doesn't stop completely for no reason.

Regards,
Ferdinando

[chrisstubbs]

Yes, we have many other devices on the same switch and all other devices are working perfectly.  Just communication to the server running ESXi.  I'm pretty certain that virtual machine that we connect to has somehow powered down in the software and nothing we've done to try to power it back on seems to work it keeps giving back a power on fail response.

[Kinnison]

Comment removed...

[chrisstubbs]

By logging in directly to Vmware on the server it is running on. After getting to the maintenance screen, I don't recall how but the technician was able to get to a command prompt type screen where you can type in commands for things like powering virtual machines on and off checking what machines are on the system etc.  This is what made us realize that we can see a list of the virtual machines that are showing to be running and the one that we need to be running seems to not be but the power on command keeps failing so our concern is that that virtual machine is possibly corrupt or maybe we are just doing something incorrectly to get it up and running again. Being that nothing is communicating with the machine we need on there right now anyway I'm wondering if a system reset of some type might help anything or if I'm doing the wrong thing or being too extreme about it

[Kinnison]

Comment removed...

[a_p_]

I still think that this is more of a networking issue.

Anyway, what type of physical server is it, i.e. is it an enterprise grade server which offers a dedicated management network interface like iLO, iDRAC? If so, are you able to connect to this?

Do you have access to the physical switch, to check the status for the ports to which the ESXi host is connected? Does the port configuration look as expected (e.g. tagged/untagged, speed/duplex, VLANs, ...)? I know this is very technical, but maybe you have some documentation that you can use to verify whether the settings are as expected.

André

[chrisstubbs]

Thank you, we are thinking the same thng.  I do have two ethernet ports on the server, but switching them and making sure settings in ESXi are set to use the right one each time seems to not allow any outside ping to work .  It does seem odd that both Ethernet ports would all of a sudden be bad but my next step is to add an additional network card to the server and see if I have any luck there.

everything on the switches seem to be correct and everything else on those switches works no problem.

It has been recommended to me to rebuild the network stack on the esxi machine.  Any input or references you can point me to about how to go about this?  

I appreciate all the help.

[a_p_]

You can of course reset the ESXi host's configuration from the DCUI (the host's console interface).

What else you may check is the network configuration. Please verify from the DCUI that not only the Management Network is bound to the correct uplinks/vmnics, but also that the settings like the IP address, subnet mask, default gateway are correct.
In case a VLAN-ID is assigned to the Management Network, please double-check the physical switch port(s) configuration too, i.e. whether these are configuraed as tagged ports, and allow the required VLANs.

André