Booting or restarting PhotonOS results in systemd-netword.service reproting as dead

Products

• VMware Aria Suite

Issue/Introduction

• When the appliances is restarted and rebooted, you cannot reach the website or SSH into it.
• When you access the appliance via console and execute 'systemctl status systemd-networkd', it return output similar to:

Network Service Down:
systemd-networkd.service - Network Service
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/systemd-networkd.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
  Drop-In: /etc/systemd/system/systemd-networkd.service.d
           └─override.conf
   Active: inactive (dead)
     Docs: man:systemd-networkd.service(8)

• Manually executing 'systemctl start systemd-networkd.service' successfully starts the service but on reboot it is dead again.
• Executing 'systemctl is-enabled systemd-networkd' shows the service is enabled.
• Executing 'ifconfig' or other IP check shows all proper networking is configured.
• Review of the vSphere environment shows proper network assigned and connected.

Environment

Aria Suite Lifecycle Manager 8.x

Aria Automation 8.x

Aria Operations 8.x

PhotonOS 3.x

Cause

This can occur when the symlink is missing from the required directory for service start to occur.

Resolution

Repair the symlink by executing:

systemctl enable systemd-networkd

This will create the symlink allowing you to reboot and the service should come up automatically.