Unable to configure network interfaces' network settings in the Recovery settings window for replications in Cloud Director Availability 4.x

Products

• VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

• When modifying the network mapping for a NIC in the Recovery Settings for a replication, the changes are not retained or they are applied to another NIC on the virtual machine.
• This issue occurs when the source virtual machine either does not have a network interface called Network adapter 1 or if it has multiple network interfaces, there are gaps in the numerical sequence of the network adapters. For example, a virtual machine with the network interfaces Network adapter 1 and Network adapter 3 but no Network adapter 2.

Environment

VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.x

Cause

This issue occurs because the Cloud Director Availability Portal expects virtual machine network interfaces to start with Network adapter 1 and if there are multiple network interfaces it expects that they are present in consecutive order with no gaps in the numerical sequence.

Resolution

This is a known issue affecting Cloud Director Availability 4.x.

Currently, there is no resolution.

Workaround:

To work around this issue, you can either modify the source VM so there are no gaps in the sequential ordering or make changes to the Recovery Settings' Network Mappings via the Cloud Director Availability API.

• Add network adapters to the source virtual machine to eliminate any gaps in the sequential ordering of the interfaces and allow you to manage the network mappings via the Cloud Director Availability Portal. You can then either:
  • Reconfigure the network adapters on the source virtual machine so the network adapters are used in sequential order, with no gaps, starting with Network adapter 1 and the excess network adapters at the end of the sequence removed.
  • Deselect Connect At Power On for the newly added network adapters so that they do not participate in the network.
• Use the /vmreplications/{replicationId}/network-settings API to update the network settings for an impacted replication. For more information on the use of the API, see the Update/replace the VM replication failover and test failover network settings section of the Cloud Director Availability API Reference.

Warning: If one of the above workarounds is not applied to an impacted replication, the applied network settings on the recovered virtual machine will be inaccurate and you will need to manually adjust the recovered virtual machine's networking settings as part of the failover activity.