The "esxcli network connection list" command reports an error on ESXi 4.1 hosts in a vSphere 5.0 HA cluster

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• On an ESXi 4.1 host that is a member of a vSphere 5.0 HA cluster, when the esxcli network connection list command is run on the host, you see an error similar to:
  
  terminate called after throwing an instance of 'VmkCtl::Lib::SysinfoException'
  what(): Sysinfo error on operation returned status : Bad parameter. Please see the VMkernel log for detailed error information
  Aborted
  
  
• On an ESXi 4.1 host that is a member of a vSphere 5.0 HA cluster, when the esxcli network connection list command is run from the vCLI or from a vMA appliance, you see an error similar to:
  
  list failed: A general system error occurred:
  
  
• In the /var/log/messages file on the ESXi 4.1 host, you may see messages similar to:
  
  Mar 12 15:28:05 vmkernel: 7:00:16:23.785 cpu1:2400023)UserDump: 1587: Userworld coredump complete.
  Mar 12 15:28:06 vmkernel: 7:00:16:24.280 cpu2:2400122)Tcpip_Vmk: 80: get connection failed
  Mar 12 15:28:06 vmkernel: 7:00:16:24.281 cpu2:2400122)User: 2432: wantCoreDump : esxcli -enabled : 1
  Mar 12 15:28:06 vmkernel: 7:00:16:24.407 cpu4:2400122)UserDump: 1485: Dumping cartel 2400122 (from world 2400122) to file /var/core/esxcli-zdump.002 ...
  
  
• Disabling HA for the cluster allows the command to be run without errors and the expected output is returned.
• The vSphere 5.0 version of the same command, esxcli network ip connection list, does not produce an error and returns expected results when run on an ESXi 5.0 host that is a member of a vSphere 5.0 HA cluster.

Environment

VMware ESXi 4.1.x Installable
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Embedded

Resolution

This is a known issue on ESXi 4.1.

To work around this issue:

Disable HA on the cluster where the esxcli network connection list command must be run, run the command, then re-enable HA after the command has completed.

Additional Information

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