D’oh – VMware conversion and static IPs
So we converted all of our testbed servers from the venerable VMware Server 1.0 product to the sexy, but also free, ESXi product. Server was getting a bit a bit long in the tooth, but we definitely had reason to be wary of the VMware Server 2.0 product based on our experience with the beta causing what appeared as disk hardware errors. That is another story.
The point is, moving to ESXi is beneficial in a lot of ways, mostly to do with the serious hardware we put underneath it. Multiple snapshot support is another nice benefit to mention. However, the conversion process had one gotcha up its sleeve…network adapter changes.
The network adapter is definitely part of the virtualization performed by VMware, drivers for which are included with the VMware tools installed on the guest. During the conversion process, I failed to notice that these were replaced with the ESXi tools, which caused the OS to recognize a new network adapter.
All of our testbed systems are individual Domain Controllers of their own domains, along with Exchange being installed. This configuration didn’t break at first, thankfully. The big issue is that if you are doing domain stuff with these boxes anywhere outside them, such as adding a computer to the domain, the other machine needs to know the DC. Normally this is gotten through DHCP and DNS. In this case, we have loads of these separate DCs on the same network, so they can’t very well all be DHCP servers. Instead the DC has to be hardcoded into the client as the DNS server. This is why all of the testbeds have static IPs assigned.
Until you replace their network cards and forget to reassign the static IP.
So remember this if you end up converting VMs with static IP configs.
The point is, moving to ESXi is beneficial in a lot of ways, mostly to do with the serious hardware we put underneath it. Multiple snapshot support is another nice benefit to mention. However, the conversion process had one gotcha up its sleeve…network adapter changes.
The network adapter is definitely part of the virtualization performed by VMware, drivers for which are included with the VMware tools installed on the guest. During the conversion process, I failed to notice that these were replaced with the ESXi tools, which caused the OS to recognize a new network adapter.
All of our testbed systems are individual Domain Controllers of their own domains, along with Exchange being installed. This configuration didn’t break at first, thankfully. The big issue is that if you are doing domain stuff with these boxes anywhere outside them, such as adding a computer to the domain, the other machine needs to know the DC. Normally this is gotten through DHCP and DNS. In this case, we have loads of these separate DCs on the same network, so they can’t very well all be DHCP servers. Instead the DC has to be hardcoded into the client as the DNS server. This is why all of the testbeds have static IPs assigned.
Until you replace their network cards and forget to reassign the static IP.
So remember this if you end up converting VMs with static IP configs.