vSphere ESXi ntg3 driver briefly reports link as up for disconnected (down) ports during initialization

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

vSphere ESXi ntg3 driver briefly reports link as up for disconnected (down) ports during initialization. The correct link status will be reported after link initialization finishes (in about 1 second), so it's usually harmless. But if management network is auto-configured, such as for a new-install ESXi, and the auto-configuration occurs before ntg3 reports the correct link status, it may pick a disconnected ntg3 port as the management network uplink.

Cause

When the ntg3 NIC driver initializes during ESXi boot, it would report all its ports as up until it finishes link initialization about one second later. If the link is actually down (disconnected), then during this brief period the reported link state is wrong. The management network auto-configuration would pick the lowest numbered Up port as the management network uplink. If management network auto-configuration is used and occured during this brief window, and an actually disconnected ntg3 port is the lowest numbered NIC port, it would be picked as the management network uplink. The host would then have no management network connectivity.

 

Resolution

Currently there is no resolution to the issue. This will be fixed in the future release.

Workaround:

To workaround the issue, manually change the management network uplink to a connected NIC port.