ESX 3.0.2 cluster / W2K3R2 Guests do not see network

[hemaphore]

I have 2 HP DL585 G2's running ESX 3.0.2 clustered.

Windows 2003 R2 x64 (and x86) guest VM's say they are "connected at 1Gbps" however I can't even ping the default gateway.

Both guest VM's are fresh installs of 2003, and the NIC on 2003 shows that there are packets being sent but 0 received.

VMWare tools is installed.

Verified w/ a Fluke that all network connections are connected properly and all cables are a-ok.

We can't deploy til this gets resolved

[hemaphore]

If I need to supply additional info, please let me know.

[admin]

Double check your virtual switches and port groups. Make sure that your virtual switches have physical nics tied to them to serve as uplinks to your physical switches.

Chris

[hemaphore]

Verified that all vSwitches and Portgroups look ok and are talking to the right NICs. Is there anything else I need to look at?

One other thing I noticed is that if I have 2 VM's on the same switch, they can ping between each other...

[mikeddib]

If you could supply some more information about how your physical NICs look in your configuration (count per server, port configuration on your switch, etc) that might be helpful.

Are VMs able to ping each other when they are on different ESX hosts?

[hemaphore]

VMs are not able to ping each other when they are on different ESX hosts.

Network config is as follows (Service Console is set to One-HundredFD):

vSwitch0 - Service Console

vmnic0 / 100FD

vSwitch1 - VMkernel / VMotion

vmnic1 / 1000FD

vSwitch2 - VLAN 001

vmnic2 / 1000FD

vSwitch3 - VLAN 002

vmnic3 / 1000FD

vSwitch4 - VLAN 003

vmnic4 / 1000FD

vmnic6 / 1000FD

vSwitch5 - VLAN 004

vmnic5 / 1000FD

vSwitch7 - VLAN 005

vmnic7 / 1000FD

Switch ports are configured as such:

interface GigabitEthernet9/1

description ****

switchport

switchport access vlan 003

switchport mode access

no ip address

speed 1000

duplex full

spanning-tree portfast

end

GigabitEthernet9/1 is up, line protocol is up (connected)

Hardware is C6k 1000Mb 802.3, address is ***.**.*** (bia ***.**.***)

Description: *****

MTU 1500 bytes, BW 1000000 Kbit, DLY 10 usec,

reliability 255/255, txload 1/255, rxload 1/255

Encapsulation ARPA, loopback not set

Keepalive set (10 sec)

Full-duplex, 1000Mb/s

input flow-control is off, output flow-control is on

Clock mode is auto

ARP type: ARPA, ARP Timeout 04:00:00

Last input never, output 00:00:55, output hang never

Last clearing of "show interface" counters never

Input queue: 0/2000/0/0 (size/max/drops/flushes); Total output drops: 0

Queueing strategy: fifo

Output queue: 0/40 (size/max)

5 minute input rate 0 bits/sec, 0 packets/sec

5 minute output rate 0 bits/sec, 0 packets/sec

411 packets input, 81228 bytes, 0 no buffer

Received 411 broadcasts (0 multicasts)

0 runts, 0 giants, 0 throttles

0 input errors, 0 CRC, 0 frame, 0 overrun, 0 ignored

0 watchdog, 0 multicast, 0 pause input

0 input packets with dribble condition detected

251300 packets output, 18510744 bytes, 0 underruns

0 output errors, 0 collisions, 3 interface resets

0 babbles, 0 late collision, 0 deferred

0 lost carrier, 0 no carrier, 0 PAUSE output

0 output buffer failures, 0 output buffers swapped out

Hope this info helps...

[mikeddib]

You're using access ports and not trunks. In your vSwitch configuration check and see that you have left the VLAN ID box empty since your tagging will all happen in your Cisco environment. Also, are you only having network issues on your VLAN vSwitches or are you having issues on vSwitch0 and vSwitch1 as well?

[hemaphore]

mikeddib,

That did it!

I cleared out the VLAN ID field and I am able to ping the gateway now. Thanks very much for your help!!

So what is the VLAN ID used for? I thought it was just a label for informative purposes...

[mikeddib · Accepted solution]

You would use the VLAN ID in a scenario where you are using trunkports for your NICs. That way when traffic comes from the vSwitch and goes to your Cisco trunk port it will have a VLAN associated with it and tag the traffic for the appropriate VLAN on your network.

For instance, if you wanted redundancy in your configuration for VLANs 001, 002, 004 and 005, you could use one vSwitch with portgroups and assign the VLAN ID to each port group inside the vSwitch. Then you could assign a couple physical NICs to that vSwitch and be protected if you lose a NIC card.

[hemaphore]

mikeddib:

Sorry I didn't mark the previous message as "Correct", I went ahead and marked this one. Thanks again for the info and the explanation!