Receive error, "Virtual nic does not have a static IP assigned" when trying to add a host to a workload domain cluster.

Products

• VMware Cloud Foundation 5.x

Issue/Introduction

Example of the error message in the SDDC Manager UI.

Error Description Virtual nic does not have a static IP assigned.
Remediation Ensure the virtual nic has an assigned static IP address by disabling DHCP.

 

Symptoms:

Verified all hosts have static IP addresses assigned. 

Identified hosts in the cluster have an USB interface enabled.

Identified the added host(s)/hosts in the cluster have a vSwitchBMC configured. 

Similar errors are seen in the domainmanager.log

/var/log/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/domainmanager.log
======================================================================================
2024-03-21T19:26:09.143+0000 ERROR [vcf_dm,2b1b4383c66691b4,31f9] [c.v.e.s.o.model.error.ErrorFactory,dm-exec-16]  [9O6FDV] VCF_ERROR_INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR Invocation of prefix
'' part of task AssembleInputForWTSConfigurationAction in plugin StretchClusterServicePlugin failed with exception.
com.vmware.evo.sddc.common.core.error.InternalServerErrorException: Invocation of prefix '' part of task AssembleInputForWTSConfigurationAction in plugin StretchClusterServicePlugin failed with exception.at java.base/java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:833)Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot read field "portgroupKey" because "vnic.spec.distributedVirtualPort" is null

Environment

VMware Cloud Foundation 5.X

Cause

Starting with vSphere 8.0, in both Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller (iDRAC) and
HP Integrated Lights Out (ILO), when you have an USB interface enabled, vUSB or vNIC
respectively, an additional standard switch vSwitchBMC with uplink vusb0 gets created on the
ESXi host.

The additional vSwitch can break VMware Cloud Foundation operations. 

Resolution

Disable the vSwitchBMC

1. SSH into each host.

2. Disable the vSwitchBMC.

esxcfg-advcfg -s 0 /Net/BMCNetworkEnable

3. Reboot the host.

4. Verify the configuration change has persisted. 

esxcfg-advcfg -g /Net/BMCNetworkEnable

example output: Value of BMCNetworkEnable is 0

5. After disabling the BMC network on all of the hosts in the existing cluster then retry the workflow from SDDC. 

You can also disable the USB interface before installing ESXi by disabling the USB interface in the remote
management application that you use by following vendor documentation.

Additional Information

Ensure to check the setting on ALL of the hosts in the existing cluster where the new host is being added. Even if the setting is enabled on 1 ESXi hosts in the existing cluster it will cause the validation to still throw the error.