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I have a VM on VMWare ESXi 4.1, and the network to the VMs has suddenly died, I haven't changed anything.. but suddenly there is no ability to connect to anything beyond on the host (tracert timesout at the host even). My linux guy thinks my network configuration is bad but I haven't changed it in 8 months.

Bmon in ubuntu on the VM shows network activity for some reason?

Does anyone know what could cause this?

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What have you done so far to troubleshoot? Did you check ESX logs to see if there's any error? Are all VM's on the same VLAN, and if so, have you checked with your network support folks to see if they would be having a problem? – Yanick Girouard Feb 28 '12 at 3:16
The host connects to the internet fine, nope I haven't spoken to the datacenter, we've checked over the details there are no conflicts.. no errors in the logs – user41416 Feb 28 '12 at 3:25
Ok, so do you mean the VM guests can't talk to each other anymore, or that you can't get "out" of the host (i.e. access ANY address outside the host)? Have you tried by IP or by hostname? What is the test you have done exactly (give us the commands as an example). You need to give us more details if you want us to help... – Yanick Girouard Feb 28 '12 at 3:29
The guest OS can't reach anything outside of the host, or host itself, "tracert 8.8.8.8" timed out everywhere. But the network says connected :/ the host also shows the VM as connected. – user41416 Feb 28 '12 at 3:33
See my answer below. – Yanick Girouard Feb 28 '12 at 3:46

1 Answer

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It's hard to tell without more details (and by details I mean log output, complete outputs from commands you're using to troubleshoot, etc...), but from what you do dare to share, it looks as if the gateway of all the VM's is unreachable.

Please run this test (I think you have a Windows guest since you did a tracert command) on a Windows guest that is affected:

  1. Find the Default Gateway of the primary adapter (i.e. Local Area Network, unless it was renamed): ipconfig

  2. Let's say the IP Address of your default gateway is 192.168.0.1. Try to ping it: ping 192.168.0.1

If that test fails, that's your issue. If not, it could be a gazillion other things but the lack of details in your question prevents me from extrapolating further.

To be honest however, I think you should leave the troubleshooting to a system administrator with more experience or at least get one to help you (one who has access to your environment), because this seems clearly a little our of your league (not to offend you, but it is pretty basic troubleshooting an ESX admin should know).

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I don't have a system administrator ;o just me and my linux guy – user41416 Feb 28 '12 at 5:34
Pings timeout at the gateway, can't even get a response from the host, could it be the datacenter thats the problem? – user41416 Feb 28 '12 at 5:35
Then check your gateway (router)! If it can't get past that, you won't go anywhere! – Yanick Girouard Feb 28 '12 at 12:47
Okay got it, Ty. – user41416 Feb 28 '12 at 15:22

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