One of those mysteries I will never understand - vmnic order

jibbajabba

Talking to several people shows I am not imagining things

Have three server, same hardware, same model, same configuration.

Two onboard nics, two dual port ETs - totaling 6 ports..

System 1 ... onboard nics :vmnic4/vmnic5
System 2 ... onboard nics :vmnic2/vmnic3
System 3 ... onboard nics :vmnic0/vmnic5

With random things like that - how are hardware profiles / stateless systems supposed to work without problem (never tried it mind you).

And that goes back to ESX 3.x days. Back in the days there was the theory that IRQ Remapping has to be disabled ... which only worked to avoid the order to be mixed when other hardware, i.e. raid controller, were insert. But obviously not in that case, as the system has to run before you can disable that to start with...

MentholMoose

Check and if necessary update the firmware for the servers and the NICs so they are all at the same level. This may have an effect on order the devices are initialized.

jibbajabba

Oh been there done that - believe me. All firmwares are exactly the same. Even the same PCI slots for the ET cards were used ... Heck even the MACs are in order (same batch of nics) - just one of those things not even VMware seems to have an answer for.

pcgizzmo

I'm glad to see someone else thinks this is crazy. I've asked a million different times and each time I get a different answer or solution and nothing seems to matter. I think VMWare built a random number generator into their software and it uses that when it's time for VMNics to come up. That has to be the answer.

Maybe its a random vmnic generator.

jmritenour

Last year, I did an ESX 3.5 to ESXi 4.1 migration on three HP Proliant 380 G5 servers. They started off with the onboard nics as VMNIC 0-3, and the expansion Broadcom nics as 4-7. I documented everything relating to the network and storage prior the migration, and started setting up the vSwitches, and had a hell of time, then I realized that after the 4.1 install, the Broadcoms were now 0-3 and the onboard nics were 4-7. It wasn't until I looked at a screen grab I had taken of the first host, and noticed the MACs weren't in the same order as before.