The option in there in the resource management guide ( page 123 ), but there just isn't a way to revert to the 'old' behavior:
If you add a host to a VMware HA cluster, its networking configuration must be
compatible with that of the hosts already in the cluster. If not, you can still add the host
by using the advanced configuration option described in the following section.
Hosts in VMware HA clusters communicate with each other using one or more
networks. On ESX Server hosts, the networks are the service console networks, by
default. On ESX Server 3i hosts, the default is to use the non‐VMotion networks, unless
there is only one network defined and it is a VMotion Network. The VMotion network
is filtered out for cluster communication, unless otherwise specified.
When VMware HA is configured, the virtual NICs to be used for cluster
communication are determined and the virtual NIC array is passed down to the host
for configuration. The first node in the cluster determines the required networks for any
hosts subsequently added. The networks are determined by applying the subnet mask
to the virtual NICʹs IP address. This produces a network reference value against which
other nodes added to the cluster must also match.
For example, assume that you have two hosts, named HostA and HostB. If HostA has
two service console networks (redundancy is a best practice), and the two networks are
10.10.10.0 and 192.168.10.0, when HostB is added it generates a configuration fault
unless it, too, has these same two networks available for cluster communication.
To control which networks are used (if the defaults do not match) use the advanced
configuration option das.allowNetwork[http://...], see "Setting Advanced HA Options"
on page 126.
For example, the cluster could have advanced options set for:
das.allowNetwork1 "Service Console"
das.allowNetwork2 "Service Console 2"
In which case both hosts would only pass down the virtual NICs whose port group
names match the strings above. You can specify as many das.allowNetwork[http://...]
values as needed (you could also define das.allowNetworkConsole1 if you wish).
