ESXi without ifconfig command

[fly87]

Hi Friends,

i have a question about my ESXi Server...

How can i find out the Hostsystems Network Adapters MAC Addresses?

In the ESXi Console is no ifconfig Command supported.

I hope you can help me and tell where i can find this Information...

Thanks in advance

Many Greetings

Sebastian

[vmroyale]

Hello and welcome to the forums.

Try this:

vim-cmd hostsvc/net/info | grep "mac ="

Good Luck!

[kjb007]

Two things you can do. You can go to the regular management console of ESXi, and select F2, then management network, and it will list MAC addresses there.

You can also go into the ESXi support shell, and run esxcfg-info. This will print out all of the data, including network vmnics and MAC addresses. Lot of information to sort through, but if at least you can get the data.

-KjB

[nick_couchman]

If you're looking for the MAC address of the physical network card, one of the other two solutions should help you out. If you want the MAC address of the virtual network card for management, you can log in to the VI Client, go to Configuration -> Networking -> Properties and select the management network. You should see the MAC address listed.

[Dave_Mishchenko]

You can also download the file http://<ip/hostname/host/esx.conf from your host or get the file with the vifs.pl RCLI command. That file will have the MACs for the vmnics as well as the MACs for an vmkernel ports.

[ceddup]

Well, what about a good old

arp -a <your esxi ip>

on your own command line?

[MKguy]

From the console, the in my opinion best options are using the corresponding esxcfg-* or esxcli command like this:

For the physical NICs (usually rather uninteresting):

# esxcli network nic list
Name    PCI Device     Driver  Link  Speed  Duplex  MAC Address         MTU  Description
------  -------------  ------  ----  -----  ------  -----------------  ----  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
vmnic0  0000:003:00.0  bnx2    Up     1000  Full    00:1b:78:72:bb:16  1500  Broadcom Corporation NC373i Integrated Multifunction Gigabit Server Adapter
vmnic1  0000:005:00.0  bnx2    Up     1000  Full    00:1b:78:72:bb:0a  1500  Broadcom Corporation NC373i Integrated Multifunction Gigabit Server Adapter
vmnic2  0000:00b:00.0  e1000e  Up     1000  Full    00:26:55:df:7f:7c  1500  Intel Corporation 82571EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller
vmnic3  0000:00b:00.1  e1000e  Up     1000  Full    00:26:55:df:7f:7d  1500  Intel Corporation 82571EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller

# esxcfg-nics -l
Name    PCI           Driver      Link Speed     Duplex MAC Address       MTU    Description
vmnic0  0000:03:00.00 bnx2        Up   1000Mbps  Full   00:1b:78:72:bb:16 1500   Broadcom Corporation NC373i Integrated Multifunction Gigabit Server Adapter
vmnic1  0000:05:00.00 bnx2        Up   1000Mbps  Full   00:1b:78:72:bb:0a 1500   Broadcom Corporation NC373i Integrated Multifunction Gigabit Server Adapter
vmnic2  0000:0b:00.00 e1000e      Up   1000Mbps  Full   00:26:55:df:7f:7c 1500   Intel Corporation 82571EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller
vmnic3  0000:0b:00.01 e1000e      Up   1000Mbps  Full   00:26:55:df:7f:7d 1500   Intel Corporation 82571EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller

For the virtual vmknics your host actually uses:

# esxcli network ip interface list
vmk0
   Name: vmk0
   MAC Address: 00:1b:78:72:bb:16
   Enabled: true
   Portset: vSwitch0
   Portgroup: MGMT_10.1.1.0
   VDS Name: N/A
   VDS UUID: N/A
   VDS Port: N/A
   VDS Connection: -1
   MTU: 1500
   TSO MSS: 65535
   Port ID: 33554438

# esxcfg-vmknic -l
Interface  Port Group/DVPort   IP Family IP Address                              Netmask         Broadcast       MAC Address       MTU     TSO MSS   Enabled Type     
vmk0       MGMT_10.110.5.0     IPv4      10.1.1.33                             255.255.255.0   10.1.1.255    00:1b:78:72:bb:16 1500    65535     true    STATIC