SRM IP subnet rule customization is skipped on Linux VMs. IP configuration not reported for disconnected NICs

Products

• VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:
When SRM IP subnet rule customization is not applied and the recovery step is marked as skipped on Linux VMs. SRM is not able to get recovered VMs original guest IP settings for disconnected NICs. These Linux distribution experience this issue:

• RHEL 7.1 with NetworkManager 1.0.0-14. The problem is not observed for newer RHEL versions.
• SLES 12 SP1, SLES 12 SP4, SLES 15 SP1
• Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 17.10, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 19.04

Cause

To look for applicable IP subnet mapping rule, SRM needs to retrieve from target guest OS its original IP configuration. Once the storage is failovered and target virtual machine ready to be powered on.

For this purpose:

1. SRM disconnects all VM's NICs prior to the first power-on of a recovered VM.
2. Waits VMware Tools to report VM’s network configuration and IP settings.
3. Based on retrieved settings lookup IP subnet mapping rule to apply.
4. Perform IP customization with settings based on the discovered rule. Still on disconnected NICs.
5. After successful IP customization, SRM restarts the VM with connected NICs.

SRM IP customization to be skipped on VMs with the affected Linux distributions as SRM cannot receive any IP addresses on step #2.

When the vNIC is disconnected, VMware Tools is not able to read IP settings in order to provide it to VC and then to SRM. On such VMs executing 'ifconfig' or 'ip addr show' doesn't report any IP settings when powered on with a disconnected NIC. Once the NIC is connected the IP settings are available again from both VMware Tools and running 'ifconfig'/'ip addr show'.

Except with examining 'ifconfig'/'ip addr show' output after powering on with disconnected NICs, you can recognize this problem in SRM server logs:

2019-02-27T10:52:18.408+02:00 trivia vmware-dr[02960] [SRM@6876 sub=Recovery ctxID=50b6730f opID=########-####-####-####-##########52-test:4fa1:be3b:3aaa:7fcd] [NicInfoResolver.vm-41.4000] Guest NIC info: (vim.vm.GuestInfo.NicInfo) {
-->    network = "srmpg-########-####-####-####-##########46",
-->    ipAddress = <unset>,
-->    macAddress = "00:50:##:##:##:30",
-->    connected = false,
-->    deviceConfigId = 4000,
-->    dnsConfig = (vim.net.DnsConfigInfo) null,
-->    ipConfig = (vim.net.IpConfigInfo) {
-->       ipAddress = <unset>,
-->       dhcp = (vim.net.DhcpConfigInfo) null,
-->       autoConfigurationEnabled = <unset>
-->    },
-->    netBIOSConfig = (vim.net.NetBIOSConfigInfo) null
--> }

SRM retrieves 'ipAddress = <unset>' for a target VM's NICs.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, use one of these options:

• For RHEL 7.1 and Ubuntu 14.04 disable NetworkManager service or mark the target NICs as NM_CONTROLLED=no in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-x file:
• For RHEL 7.1 update to RHEL 7.2 or later
• For Ubuntu 14.04 update to Ubuntu 16.04 or 17.04
• Use manual IP customization configuration for affected virtual machines