Re-attach distributed port groups to distributed switch after host rebuild

[3CV]

Good morning.  We have a situation where a 6.5U3 host on a blade that needed a rebuild due to hardware failure.  Rejoined it to vCenter and the cluster with no issues.  However, there are 2 distributed switches, one that is fully vmk ports for storage and one for other VLANs.  Switch B - storage - is fine.  vmk ports rejoined ok, that's working as it should.  However I don't know how to re-join the other distributed port groups to dvSw A.  My thinking now is to remove the host from Sw A and re-join it, would that work?   My experience with dv switches is set and forget, not really had an issue with them before, certainly not this.   Is there a command line or PowerCLi way of doing it?  All I can find online is how to create port groups on a distributed switch - thats not what I want to do.  I need to re-attach the existing ones.

[Ardaneh]

Hi,

Sorry but I couldn't understand your problem well, so I believe you want to join your ESXi host to some vDS that you had before and use PortGroups as well.

When you lose an ESXi host and remove it from VC, it will be removed from all VC objects such as Distributed Switches, so there is no need to remove it from vDS manually.

After adding your host to your VC, you can add it to every vDS that you have in your environment as long as you have those physical uplinks that you had before. Just select your vDS and choose "Add and Manage Hosts" and then Add your ESXi host to the vDS. After that, you can use every one of the PorGroups that you have created on that vDS for your host.

I hope this could be helpful

[scott28tt]

These?

Remove Hosts from a vSphere Distributed Switch

Add Hosts to a vSphere Distributed Switch

[nachogonzalez]

Hey 3CV, hope you are doing fine:

Try this:

1. Log in to vCenter, go to networks, and navigate to the vSwitch you are trying to add hosts.
2. Right click the vDS and click add or remove hosts.
3. Select the host (it might not apprear  so you need to click new hosts) and edit vmk and VM networking

Hope that works

https://www.ivobeerens.nl/2013/03/15/remove-a-host-from-the-vsphere-distributed-switch-vds/

[3CV]

Hi - Thanks for the replies.  Sorry, I didn't explain it very well.  The cluster has 2 distributed switches - A and B. The rebuilt host was removed and re-added to vCenter, and has added to both switches.   I was able to get the vmk ports all attached fine to the B-switch and we have the datastores available.  The other vm network distributed port groups are present on the rebuilt host but I can't get them assigned to the A-switch.  They cover different VLANs.

When looking at the topology, each host in the cluster has the distributed port groups assigned to the A-switch except this one host - and that's what I'm trying to correct.  The A-switch is empty.    The port groups are present on the host just not assigned to anything. 

I know how to add/remove hosts from the switch, we've already removed/re-added to vCenter a couple of times, but its been a while since I've done anything with distributed switches and even then not a whole lot.  I'll be looking at it again today, and may have to go through it all again from the ground up.  Hopefully it makes sense this time.

[3CV · Accepted solution]

All sorted.  Seems that a reboot resolved some of the issues.  Thanks all for the advice though.