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Last week I planned to migrate some virtual machines running on a Windows host with VMWare Server 1.x version to VMWare ESX 3.5i host. One of the vm’s is running as license server and the key is registered by using the MAC of the network interface.

I had the prerequisite of keeping the MAC address of this VM. I first read this post I found with google. http://zealkabi.blogspot.com/2008/09/vmware-esx-server-3x-procedure-to-set.html

I first tried it manually but got the famous error message “The MAC address entered is not in the valid range. Valid values are between xx:xx:xx:xx:xx”

 Then I removed the vm from ESX inventory; download the vmx file and changed the ethernet0.addressType to static and ethernet0.Address = “01:0C:29:B0:27:E1″ with Notepad++.I deleted original file from the Datastore and upload the vmx file back. I started the vm again and got the message below:

Please specify a static Ethernet address for ethernet0. Failed to configure ethernet0

Without additional setting in the vmx config file you won’t be able to assign a static MAC address in the range your require. To disable mac address checking before boot add the following line in the vmx file.

 ethernetX.checkMACAddress = “false”

Thanks to Jason Nash I fixed this problem.
http://jasonnash.wordpress.com/2008/08/30/disabling-mac-address-checking-in-vmware/

My working config changes:

ethernet0.checkMACAddress = “false”

ethernet0.addressType = “static”

ethernet0.Address = “00:0C:29:B0:27:E1″

There are couple command line tools that VMWare ESX offers when the server has been installed with the “Service Console” mode (without i). In the following example I will explain and show how to create new vSwitch; link a physical network interface and assign a IP address for your “Service Console” management interface.

[root@LAB-ESX-01 root]# esxcfg-vswitch -a vSwitch0 –> This will create new virtual switch

[root@LAB-ESX-01 root]# esxcfg-vswitch -L vmnic0 vSwitch0 –> This will link my first physical network interface to vSwitch0

Result of the two commands:

As you can see vmnic0 with 1000Mbps has been associated with vSwitch0. Now I would like to have a “Service Console” port group sitting on this virtual switch.

[root@LAB-ESX-01 root]# esxcfg-vswitch -A Service\ Console vSwitch0 –> This will create new port group named Service Console. Creating new port group on a virtual switch is nothing more than assigning or defining a interface on a switch. Now I would like to assign a L3 IP address on this interface/portgroup.

[root@LAB-ESX-01 root]# esxcfg-vswif -a vswif2 -p “Service Console” -i 192.168.1.2 -n 255.255.255.0 -b 192.168.1.255 –> This will create new L3 interface which is linked to the Service Console port group with an static IP address. ESX server will generate new L2 mac address and assign this to the vswif2 interface.

[2008-09-12 13:22:21 'Vnic' warning] Generated New MAC address, 00:50:56:40:49:f4 for vswif2

Target result:

Just using two built-in esx configuration command line tools I was able to create and assign new service console ip address on a special physical management network interface.

Summary:

• esxcfg-vswitch -a switch_name
• esxcfg-vswitch -L physical_nic switch_name
• esxcfg-vswitch -A Service\ Console switch_name
• esxcfg-vswif -a vswif2 -p “Service Console” -i 192.168.1.2 -n 255.255.255.0 -b 192.168.1.255

Related links:

• B2V Guide to VMware ESX Server 3