Unable to create more than 62 VSS virtual switches in ESXi 7.0U1 and later

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• You are unable to create more than 62 VSS virtual switches.
• In vmkernel.log, you see message similar to:

2020-11-02T12:58:39.968Z cpu0:133465 opID=32a5f8bd)WARNING: Net: 1811: can't create portset: Out of resources

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0.x

Cause

This issue occurs as the number of default maximum virtual switch is changed from 128 to 64 in ESXi 7.0 U1 and later

Resolution

This is an expected behaviour.

Workaround:
As a workaround, use esxcfg-advcfg to set the desired value.

  1. Login to the ESX host,
  2. Run the below command: esxcfg-advcfg -k number_of_switch netNumPortsets
   Note: Change the number_of_switch to the number you want to set [0-128].
  3. Reboot the system.

Additional Information

If you have upgraded a host running ESXi 6.7 (or earlier) that already has more than 62 vSwitches to ESXi 7.0 (or later), you may encounter:

• You are unable to ping the host's vmkernel interfaces.
• The "Configure Management Network" option is greyed out in the DCUI.
• esxcli network ip interface list outputs Unable to get node: Not found
• In hostd.log, you see messages similar to:

Unable to get node: Not found