After upgrading ESXi hosts in an SDDC-managed environment, various failures can occur that require resetting the host network configuration. When the network configuration is reset to defaults, the NSX switch configuration deployed by SDDC Manager is lost. The host loses all vmkernel adapters that are present on other hosts in the cluster.
To restore management connectivity, a temporary Standard vSwitch may be manually configured. If network connectivity becomes completely unavailable, this configuration must be performed from the Direct Console User Interface (DCUI). See Configuring Standard vSwitch (vSS) or virtual Distributed Switch (vDS) from the command line in ESXi for detailed recovery steps.
Initial recovery attempts using standard vSwitch to distributed vSwitch migration fail because the environment uses NSX switches for management, not traditional distributed switches.
Symptoms include:
Upgrade failures can cause the NSX switch configuration to not be properly populated on the ESXi host. Without the NSX switch configuration deployed by SDDC Manager, the associated VMK adapters cannot exist. The host is left without the network configuration required for proper cluster integration. Manual configuration using traditional vSphere networking cannot recreate SDDC-deployed NSX configurations.
Follow the standard SDDC host reimaging process to restore proper NSX configuration through SDDC automation. See How to re-image an ESXi Host and add it back to SDDC Manager in VMware Cloud Foundation for detailed steps.
The reimaging process triggers SDDC automation to apply the correct NSX transport node profile, automatically recreating:
No manual network configuration is required when using SDDC reimaging for NSX-deployed environments. SDDC Manager handles all network configuration automatically based on the cluster profile.
If the error persists after following these steps, contact Broadcom SDDC support for further assistance.