Can't talk to ESXi Host

Johnjones

I have one ESXi which I have no problems with. It's running one standard switch with management port @ 192.168.0.10

I'm trying to get a second ESXi up and running with an IP of .20. Standard switch as well. I can ping it fine, but when I attempt to ping from one of my virtual machines running on the first ESXi host I can't reach it. Basically my virtual network isn't talking with the new host. I dunno why.

I've got 1 cable modem directly connected to Internet. I've got a small unmanaged 10 port switch connecting both hosts and that's it. DHCP is enabled on the cable modem only.

Any ideas?

Deathmage

Try this:

1. This seems obvious but is your PC plugged into the switch? - check your cables.

2. Then see if you can ping server 1 and server 2 from your PC.

3. Then if you can ping one and not the other, see if you move the cables around if this makes a difference in the pings; could be a bad port.

4. Then if that doesn't work, make sure the IP address are correct on the servers.

5. If this is a VM and it's Windows based disable the windows firewall.

....if none of this works....

Then get a cross over cable and plug it into the server and then into your PC, change the IP address information so it matches the server IP range and bring up command prompt and do a "arp -a" and see if the nic card is even working on the server; if it is you will have a mac address in your arp table. it could very well be a nic issue.

Make sure you have the management port setup on server 2, also make sure the virtual switch is setup correctly on both servers like identical.

Without have a few screenshots of the virtual switch configs these are just guesses...

BlackBeret

I don't use ESXi, but other systems.

You can ping server 2 from server one, but not from a VM on server 1 correct? How's the host network configured? It sounds like you have NAT on the VM's which would put it on a different subnet. If you have NAT for the host network, switch it to bridged, should do it.

Johnjones

Thanks for assistance guys. It appears when I only have one host connected to the switch I'm good. As soon as I connect the other host to the switch I'll get about 10 ping replies then couple time outs...repeat from both hosts. I unplug one host and the other is good to go.

Basically while one host is returning replies, the other is timing out. Same problem happens even if I connect one of the hosts into the cable modem. I don't get it.

Deathmage

The way your describing this '10 port unmanaged switch' it makes me think it's a 'hub', since it sounds like your have collisions....

I for one would remove the cable modem connection straight into the switch and put a Cisco/Linksys N3000 wireless router in-between the cable modem and the '10 port unmanaged switch' and enable DHCP on the Cisco/Linksys router instead or just make your addresses static.

I got a feeling your ISP cable modem may not be doing what you want it to do and/or if your unmanaged switch is actually a hub then that explains a few things if it is. Either way I'd do that and go from there.