A virtual machine loses network connectivity after vMotion

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• A virtual machine loses network connectivity after performing a vMotion.
• When you use tcpdump to analyze packet traffic, you see that a RARP request is not sent after the virtual machine has been moved via vMotion to the destination host.
• If you set the Load Balancing policy in the vSwitch properties to Notify Switches, the RARP request is sent after performing a vMotion.

Environment

VMware ESXi
VMware vCenter Server

Cause

Upstream switch not notified

Resolution

To resolve this issue, enable switch notification by setting the Notify Switches option to Yes in the Load Balancing and Failover Policy.

If setting the Notify Switches option to Yes does not resolve the issue:

• Ensure the virtual machine is on the proper VLAN ID after vMotion by checking the port configuration of the vSwitch and physical switch.
• Check the VLAN configuration on the vSwitch.
• Check the subnets assigned to VLANs.
• Check the physical switch ports for proper VLAN configuration.

For more information on troubleshooting steps, see Troubleshooting virtual machine network connection issues.