[ESXi 5.5] Lost all access to Host

[Gattancha]

Hi folks -

I built my first ESXi host server over the weekend (Free Licence) and now run into some trouble - more than likely due to user error!

Basically I've lost all comms to the damn thing - everything has gone - SSH/Web/vSphere to the host and all the VMs are non reachable

All was fine this morning and all my VMs were up and running, I had RDP'd onto a VM and had the vSphere client open and generally finding my way around

Then it all went down. Now, I'm not onsite (ESXi's at home - I'm currently at work) so not been able to do proper diags

From the info I've had - the ESXi is at the Grey/Yellow screen but there appears to be no access to it remotely

The last thing I remember doing was renaming "VM Network" to "Domain LAN" and reconfiguring the VMs to use it - same network just a different name (at least that's what I thought should be the case)  All the VMs showed up as connected to the virtual switch.

Is there anything that can be done from the console to check / reconfigure this to get everything back up (this wont be till about 5pm UK time when I'm back home!)

Sorry for the limited info , but that's all I have for now...

[zXi_Gamer]

the ESXi is at the Grey/Yellow screen but there appears to be no access to it remotely

Well, Press Alt+F2 should help you out to get to the troubleshooting mode to check the network settings and gateway and fix initial settings

(at least that's what I thought should be the case)

Mostly, I suspect it would not be the case, since the management would reside in a different portgroup and even if your VM has lost its connectivity, it should get it back once you changed the portgroup.

What I suspect is that the VM might have lost connection to the ESX, a simple network restart on the VM should get you running. Also, I understand that all this is carried out in a single vSwitch with only one vmnic attached.?

[Gattancha]

Thanks for the reply

I'll try a restart of the ESXi host when I get home and the ALT+F2 to try and see if there's anything obvious in there and if it'll fix the networking from there.

As for the vSwitch, yeah there is only the one of them so guessing I screwed it up when I renamed the sodding network.

Annoying that I have zero remote access to do anything just now

Have been looking for ways to reset the network to defaults if I cant get it to play nicely.

[zXi_Gamer]

Good luck.

Poopaye! ...

[Gattancha]

Got it sorted!

And as expected it was user error :smileyblush:

When I renamed the network, I had changed all the VMs to use the new network name, but hadn't realised the VMs had become disconnected from the Virtual NICs!

The reason I couldn't ping the Host was that the NIC of the desktop PC had lost its DHCP address and wasn't accepting a static IP and needed to be disabled and renabled itself..

All good and lessons learnt!