Physical NIC detached from another distributed switch when using “Adapters on all hosts” on a vSphere Distributed Switch.

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

This issue can occur when the “Adapters on all hosts” option, available under Add and Manage Hosts > Manage physical adapters > Adapters on all hosts, is used in environments where host NIC layouts differ. This option is intended for hosts with the same physical network adapter. When used in mixed environments, a physical NIC may be detached from another distributed switch, resulting in loss of connectivity.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server

Cause

The “Adapters on all hosts” option under Add and Manage Hosts > Manage physical adapters enforces a uniform physical NIC–to–uplink mapping across hosts that share the same physical network adapter. When hosts have different NIC layouts or dependencies, applying this option can cause a physical NIC to be detached from another distributed switch to satisfy the requested configuration.

Resolution

When hosts do not have identical physical network adapter layouts, configure physical NICs per host instead of using “Adapters on all hosts.”

Steps:

1. Navigate to Networking in the vSphere Client.
2. Select the distributed switch being modified.
3. Right-click the switch and select Add and Manage Hosts.
4. Choose Manage host networking.
5. On the Manage physical adapters page, select Adapters per host.
6. Configure uplinks individually for each host.
7. Verify existing NIC assignments remain unchanged.
8. Complete the wizard and validate connectivity.

Additional Information

Configure Physical Network Adapters on a vSphere Distributed Switch