Reconfigure Dell iDRAC USB NIC Address For SVM Deployment

Products

• VMware NSX

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• NXGI Endpoint protection or MPS SVM deployment fails during network configuration phase.
• On NSX, the following error is observed:
  • Error occurred: Error configuring network for CM: An error occurred during host configuration.
• On VC, the following error is observed:
  • An error occurred during host configuration. Operation failed, diagnostics report: Unable to Set: Address not available

Environment

VMware NSX-T Data Center 3.x
VMware NSX-T Data Center
VMware NSX 4.0.0.1

Cause

NXGI Endpoint protection or MPS SVM deployment creates a dedicated standard switch (vmservice-vswitch) on the ESX host during deployment. A VM kernel interface is attached to this switch with IP address 169.254.1.2. This operation fails if another VM kernel interface already exists with the same IP (attached to another switch). This leads to deployment failure with the above mentioned error.

This can happen when Dell iDRAC to OS passthrough mechanism is enabled, which may be the default setting on Dell servers. The iDRAC USB NIC may be assigned default IP address 169.254.1.1. When this NIC is connected to a standard switch and the host VM kernel interface is connected to the switch, it gets DHCP IP address 169.254.1.2.

This is a known issue in NSX-T 3.2 and NSX 4.0.0.1.

Resolution

There is no resolution to this issue.

Workaround:

1. Starting with NSX 4.0.1 deployment precheck doesn’t allow deployment to proceed if IP address conflict is detected.
2. The administrator is requested to reconfigure iDRAC USB NIC default IP address to a different subnet IP other than 169.254.1.1/24. The administrator can refer to official Dell server documentation or contact Dell support for iDRAC reconfiguration.