Networking settings lost after rebooting host

[powers]

I have vcenter running as a VM on host #1  (vsphere 4.1 u1)

I used vcenter to configure the networking on host #1 and was able to connect to the SAN and run a VM from the SAN.

Approx 10 - 15 minutes later, I shutdown the vcenter vm, put the host in maintenance mode, and rebooted the host.

After starting up, the host no longer has the networking settings (vswitches, iscsi config etc) and as such, cannot see the SAN datastores.

I don't understand why this has happened.

I had already just installed 4.1 on my 2 other hosts literally 10 minutes before this happened,  and now I've got a nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach.

[AndreTheGiant · Accepted solution]

Are you using ESX or ESXi?

Because ESXi works in ramdisk, and it updated the config files not in real time.

See: http://communities.vmware.com/thread/265019

Andre

[powers]

Hi

ESX 4.1

I was shutting down the VMs manually, placing the server in maintenance mode, and doing a reboot from vsphere client.

Vcenter is running on server 2003, with sql server 2008.

[AndreTheGiant]

This is the right procedure. And it's strange that you loose your setting.

Maybe are you using distribuited virtual switch?

Andre

[powers]

Got an error message:

"configuration file for     on  servername.domainname.local in ha-datacenter cannot be found"

And yes, there is a blank gap between "for" and "on" in the error message.

No distributed vswitch, only thing non standard was passthrough for a tape drive. But thats been up and running for over a month now without any problems.

Have rebooted another host, and fortunately it seems to have saved its settings, so maybe its just this particular host (thank goodness)

[AndreTheGiant]

Be sure that DNS resolution is working fine.

And maybe check that host has the same DNS name (to be use use vSphere client connected directly to the host).

Andre