Uplink status is in DOWN state

Products

• VMware vSphere ESX 8.x

Issue/Introduction

One of the uplinks to dvSwitch shows vmnic state DOWN, /var/run/log/vobd.log contains following entry

vobd:  [netCorrelator] #######: [esx.problem.net.vmnic.linkstate.down] Physical NIC vmnicX linkstate is down

Environment

vSphere ESX

Cause

Power failure in a data center may cause the reboot of ESX servers and physical switches. The reboot due to power power may cause race condition, ESX server becomes online before the switch comes online.

The race condition will leave the 'vmnic' in a DOWN state. 

 

Resolution

To bring the vmnic online, perform the following procedure on ESX and physical switch 

On a ESX host run following command

esxcli network nic up -n vmnicX

where X is a number associated with vmnic 

On a physical switch - find out the vmnicX attached switch port and run the following commands

1. 'shut' 

2. 'no shut'

Check the status of vmnic state using following command 

esxcli network nic list