Post ESXi reinstallation, migration of management vmk from standard switch to DVS failing

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• Upon migrating the management vmkernel from standard switch to DVS, post ESXi reinstallation, the following error is observed on the VCenter UI: 
  Migrating VMK0 from standard switch to distributed switch or vice versa fails with error message: An error occurred while communicating with the remote host. Network configuration change disconnected the host from vCenter server and has been rolled back.
• Additionally, this could also be observed in a new set-up.

Environment

vSphere ESXi

Cause

During network reconfiguration, a redundant vmkernel adapter was provisioned on which Management tag was enabled. This newly created vmk automatically obtained an APIPA IP address (169.254.x.x), resulting in network communication failures that specifically prevented successful host management operations, including the migration of vmkernel adapters.

Resolution

Remove the additional vmk with the APIPA IP address (169.254.x.x) via:

vCenter:

Click on the affected host àconfigure àunder networking tab, select vmkernel adaptersàclick on the menu beside the vmk(redundant)àremove.

Host:

From the host UI: login to the affected host UIàNetworkingàVMkernel Nicsàclick on the vmk(redundant)à actionsà remove.

Command to remove a vmk from the CLI: esxcli network ip interface remove --interface-name=vmkX

Post removal of the vmk, migrate the management vmkernel, vmk0 from standard to DVS following the steps in: Migrate VMkernel Adapters to a vSphere Distributed Switch.