vSwitches and vmnic Linking - When the NIC Name Changes

I had one of my ESX servers die over the weekend. Upon inspection (and some calls to support to verify) it seems the system board needed replacing. I pulled the machine and had it fixed. This machine has two on-board NICs and a quad-port NIC PCI-X card. When I booted up the server (after the repair) I noticed that the server tech reinstalled the quad port card into the wrong PCI-X slot. I shut down the machine and corrected the mistake.

Then I powered on the machine and plugged in the network cables. Unfortunately I could no longer access this server via network (nor could it access the network). ifconfig showed that all the NIC ports on the quad port card had different labels, going from vmnic0 and vmnic5 to vmnic10 and vmnic14. Nice, but not too much of an issue.

When you set up the service console earlier (during install), it puts the configuration in a virtual switch (such as vSwitch0) and then "links" that switch to your physical NIC (such as vmnic0). So this is what we need to do to get network connectivity. Run the command esxcfg-vswitch -l. This lists all of your virtual switches and their configuration. Look for the vSwitch that contains your Service Console port group. This is the switch you need. In this example, it is vSwitch0.

Next we need to link the vSwitch to the correct NIC. If all of the NIC ports are on the same vLAN or physical network, then this part isn't hard. But each NIC port on this card is plugged into a different vLan (set by our network switches), so it's important that I find the correct vmnic.

If you have physical access to the machine, and you need to determine which NIC port is assigned to which vmnic# label, do this:

• Unplug all network cables from the machine.
• As root, type esxcfg-nics -l in the console. This lists all the vmnic ports, the manufacturer, and link status.
• Next, take a network attached Cat5 cable and plug it into a port.
• Run the command again, noting wich vmnic show UP for the link status.
• Repeat the process for each NIC port.

(note: You can also just link each vmnic to the vSwitch, one by one, until your network access is achieved, if you don't have physical access to the machine. But, if you're not careful, that method may not be accurate.)

When you've determined the vmnic to use, linking it to the vSwitch is just one command: esxcfg-vswitch -L vmnic# vSwitch#. In my case, it was esxcfg-vswitch -L vmnic10 vSwtich0. Once I entered that, I could get on the network. Now, you can fix the rest of the nics/switches with this command, or you can connect to the server via Virtual Center and do it through the GUI.