ESX/i -> How to let HP-sim know its OK not all nics are used

[Rune Darrud]

Hello,

I've got a couple of VMware servers where I have 4 nics + iLO nic. I am at the moment only using 3 of the nics + the iLO nic. How can I not get a flag regarding the last nic thats not connected? The server health is fine, yet HP-sim is nagging regarding the nic thats never been in use.

The OS on the servers are VMware ESX 4.1 and VMware ESXi 4.1


Regards,
Rune Darrud

[Leo Plewa]

Hello Rune,

i had the same problem.
The only way i found to get rid of the failure in the SMH was the following.
In my example NIC 1 and NIC 3 were not in use.

Edit /etc/rc.local on the VMware server to down the NICs at every startup.
If you do it interactively it works also, but only until the next restart ;-)
Put the NICs in the file which are not used.
In my case:

# cat /etc/rc.local
#!/bin/sh
#
# This script will be executed *after* all the other init scripts.
# You can put your own initialization stuff in here if you don't
# want to do the full Sys V style init stuff.

touch /var/lock/subsys/local
ifconfig vmnic1 down
ifconfig vmnic3 down

If anybody has a better solution please let me know.

I hope this helps.

If yes please give your points ;-)

[Grzegorz Kowalski_1]

Check if setting "Link Down Status Included" to Ignore resolve your issue. Its available on SMH>>Network>>your_unused_nic.

Regards,
Grzegorz

[Rune Darrud]

I know its been a long time, but any updates to this?

All the servers are now ESXi 4.1, which means no SMH.

[Paul_627]

You can buy loop back plugs for the unused nic ports or try patching the used ports together.