ESXi host is not reachable over the IPV6 address

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

The ESXi host is configured with an IPv6 address, but it is unreachable via the IPv6 address.

Packet captures from the ESXi host reveal that it is not responding to IPv6 neighbor solicitation packets, as shown below:

Environment

vSphere ESXi

Cause

The "IPv6 Router Advertised" parameter for the management network (vmk0) is not enabled on the ESXi host, as indicated by the output below:

 

[root@esx-01:~] esxcli network ip interface ipv6 get
Name  IPv6 Enabled  DHCPv6 Enabled  Router Adv Enabled  DHCP DNS  Gateway
----       ------------       --------------        ------------------      --------      -------
vmk0          true             false                        false                       false       ::

Resolution

Enable IPv6 Router Advertised for the management network vmk0 by running the following command:

 

esxcli network ip interface ipv6 set -i vmk0 -enable-router-adv =true

Additional Information

The "IPv6 Router Advertised" parameter should be enabled by default when IPv6 is configured via the DCUI console.

For instructions on configuring IPv6 using the CLI, please refer to the following document: Configuring vSphere for an IPv6 Environment.