ESXi nic ordering

[Rand__]

So had to rebuild one of my boxes due to some weird HA issues and now I got this horribly annoying problem with NIC ordering again...

Thats what I get from ESX:

 esxcfg-nics -l
Name    PCI          Driver      Link Speed      Duplex MAC Address       MTU    Description
vmnic0  0000:04:00.1 igbn        Up   1000Mbps   Full   0c:c4:7a:34:1b:5b 1500   Intel Corporation I350 Gigabit Network Connection
vmnic1  0000:02:00.0 nmlx5_core  Up   40000Mbps  Full   24:8a:07:a0:a9:c8 1500   Mellanox Technologies MT27700 Family [ConnectX-4]
vmnic2  0000:04:00.0 igbn        Up   1000Mbps   Full   0c:c4:7a:34:1b:5a 1500   Intel Corporation I350 Gigabit Network Connection
vmnic3  0000:02:00.1 nmlx5_core  Up   40000Mbps  Full   24:8a:07:a0:a9:c9 1500   Mellanox Technologies MT27700 Family [ConnectX-4]

O/c it should be
vmnic2 -> 0
vmnic0 -> 1
vmnic1 -> 2
vmnic3 -> 3

Found some old threads (like Change vmnic order on ESXi) suggesting to change in /etc/vmware/esx.conf but thats not working.

Any other ideas?

 

[Dawg10]

Don't know if this will help; I remember reading something about the NIC selected for management during installation is enumerated as vmnic0.

 

[Rand__]

Yes I read that too.
That means I'll have to reinstall (again) since o/c it selected the wrong nic during installation



Also, have tried
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/suppo...-troubleshoot-hx-nodes-pci-address-reorde.pdf
didn't help either...

 

[superempie]

Maybe this helps: How-to rename VMNIC in VMware ESXi | ESX Virtualization

To clarify some more, I did use this to change the naming scheme of my ConnectX-3 and also changed the ordering. Just beware you have to change it in multiple places in the config file and reboot afterwards.
Didn't have any problems with it.

 

[Rand__]

That's similar to the first link I shared and didn't work for me ... I didnt follow the decativate & rediscover approach, only the esxcfg one though.

 

[superempie]

I also found this: VMware Knowledge Base

 

[superempie]

This is a shorter one: Change the vmnic order on vSphere 6.x - vMBaggum

 

[Rand__]

Thats similar to the Cisco one I linked - also no go.
Reinstall with wipe of datastore has helped...

Now to get those stupid host profiles to do what I want.
Thanks for the help

 

[cw823]

Here's what Cisco TAC had me do when our vmnics went sideways during a cluster node addition (Hyperflex). We had two vmnics that should have been the last two but ended up in the middle

vi /etc/vmware/esx.conf
:%s/vmnic4/vmnicTEMP/g
:%s/vmnic6/vmnic4/g
:%s/vmnic8/vmnic6/g
:%s/vmnic5/vmnic8/g
:%s/vmnic7/vmnic5/g
:%s/vmnic9/vmnic7/g
:%s/vmnicTEMP/vmnic9/g
:wq

Reboot

 

[Rand__]

Thanks, never had the issue again, but good to know you can simply rename in esx.conf

Edit: although I seemed to have tested that when I reread my old post...
But maybe I didnt find all places...