ESXi 6.5 and 6.7 host fails with PSOD when IPV6 is globally disabled

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• A ESXi 6.5 or 6.7 host fails with a PSOD when IPV6 is globally disabled.
• You see a backtrace similar to:
  
  #PF Exception 14 in world 66149:tq:tcpip4 IP 0x4180185faae9 addr 0x0
  PTEs:0x0;
  Code start: 0x418017a00000 VMK uptime: 53:01:03:21.935
  0x4390d329bb80:[0x4180185faae9]flowtable_purge@(tcpip4)#<None>+0x31 stack: 0x0
  0x4390d329bc20:[0x4180185fcc4b]flowtable_route_flush@(tcpip4)#<None>+0x27 stack: 0x43063b49f030
  0x4390d329bc40:[0x418018558f04]rtrequest1_fib@(tcpip4)#<None>+0x54c stack: 0x417fcb61b580
  0x4390d329bd20:[0x4180185599a9]rtrequest_fib@(tcpip4)#<None>+0x81 stack: 0x4004001745400000
  0x4390d329bdc0:[0x418018578e59]in_rtqkill@(tcpip4)#<None>+0x5d stack: 0x15
  0x4390d329be10:[0x4180185565d5]rn_walktree@(tcpip4)#<None>+0x7d stack: 0x0
  0x4390d329be40:[0x4180185789fc]in_rtqtimo@(tcpip4)#<None>+0x140 stack: 0x9000056fb
  0x4390d329bee0:[0x418018526632]callout_timer@(tcpip4)#<None>+0x23e stack: 0x43063b5b76c8
  0x4390d329bf30:[0x418017a307d5]VmkTimerQueueWorldFunc@vmkernel#nover+0x285 stack: 0x2001
  0x4390d329bfe0:[0x418017cc8c95]CpuSched_StartWorld@vmkernel#nover+0x99 stack: 0x0
  
  Note: The preceding log excerpts are only examples. Date, time, and environmental variables may vary depending on your environment.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5

Cause

When IPv6 is globally disabled in an ESXi, it still tries to delete IPv6 routes when there are NULL references hence causing the ESXi to PSOD.

Resolution

ESXi 6.5

This issue is fixed in ESXi 6.5 Update 3.

ESXi 6.7

This issue is fixed in ESXi 6.7 Update 3.

Workaround:

To work around this issue, re-enable global IPv6 on the host. For more information see Enable or Disable IPv6 Support on a Host.