Aruba Wireless Controller VM appliance loses network connectivity sometimes after a reboot.

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi
• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0

Issue/Introduction

An Aruba wireless controller VM appliance loses network connectivity following a reboot. This issue is not consistently observed after every reboot but occurs randomly. 
Packet captures taken at the switchport (VnicTx, VnicRx) show no packets. However, Rx packets destined for the affected VM are visible on the host uplink but are not delivered to the virtual switchport.

Environment

The affected Aruba VM appliances are running Aruba OS (AOS) versions older than 8.12. These Aruba VMs are hosted on ESXi 8.x hypervisors.

Cause

This issue stems from a compatibility/supportability problem. Support for ESXi 8.x was introduced in AOS 8.12 (refer to Aruba release notes for detailed information).

Resolution

Upgrade the affected Aruba VM appliance to AOS 8.12 or a newer version.

Additional Information

For an affected Aruba VM port, the ethFRP:frame routing flags were observed to be 0x00000000. This indicates that the guest VM's vNIC is not requesting any type of traffic (Unicast, Multicast, or Broadcast) from the virtual interface corresponding to this vNIC. As a result, no packets are delivered to this port.

Conversely, on a healthy port, the requested flags are correctly set to 0x0000000b, which signifies that the vNIC is interested in receiving unicast, multicast, and broadcast traffic.

Example of an Affected Port (FRP flags: 0x00000000):

/> get /net/portsets/vSwitch0/ports/67108xxx/status port {
  {output omitted}
  ethFRP:frame routing {
    requested:filter {
      flags:0x00000000
      unicastAddr:00:50:56:xx:xx:xx:
      numMulticastAddresses:0
      multicastAddresses:
      LADRF:[0]: 0x0
      [1]: 0x0
    }
    accepted:filter {
      flags:0x00000000
      unicastAddr:00:50:56:xx:xx:xx:
      numMulticastAddresses:0
      multicastAddresses:
      LADRF:[0]: 0x0
      [1]: 0x0
    }
  }
  {output omitted}
}

Example of a Healthy Port (FRP flags: 0x0000000b):

/> get /net/portsets/vSwitch0/ports/67108xxx/status port {
  {output omitted}
  ethFRP:frame routing {
    requested:filter {
      flags:0x0000000b
      unicastAddr:00:50:56:xx:xx:xx:
      numMulticastAddresses:1
      multicastAddresses:01:00:5e:00:00:01,
      LADRF:[0]: 0x0
      [1]: 0x0
    }
    accepted:filter {
      flags:0x0000000b
      unicastAddr:00:50:56:xx:xx:xx:
      numMulticastAddresses:1
      multicastAddresses:01:00:5e:00:00:01,
      LADRF:[0]: 0x0
      [1]: 0x0
    }
  }
  {output omitted}
}