Unable to see the default gateway setup on vRLI VM after initial OVF deployment

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vRealize Log Insight 8.x

Issue/Introduction

In VMware Aria Operations for Logs (vRLI), the appliance may lose network connectivity or fail to persist static routes after a reboot. This issue occurs even if the IP address was manually set or appeared to work temporarily during the initial deployment phase.

Symptoms:

• The appliance becomes unreachable via its assigned static IP after a restart.

• The default gateway is missing from the routing table upon checking ip route.

• Network initialization logs indicate failure to apply routing configurations.

• Deployment was performed with a CIDR suffix (e.g., /24) included in the Default Gateway field of the OVF template.

           

Environment

 

• Product: VMware Aria Operations for Logs / vRealize Log Insight (vRLI)

• Versions: 8.x

• Operating System: Photon OS

 

Cause

The root cause is a syntax error in the vApp properties where the Default Gateway contains CIDR notation (e.g., 10.x.x.254/24). Photon OS networking scripts expect the gateway field to contain only a valid IP address. When the /24 suffix is present, the routing command fails during the boot sequence, preventing the persistence of the network stack.

Resolution

To resolve this, the invalid gateway entry must be corrected either in the vCenter vApp options or within the appliance shell.

Method 1: Correcting vApp Options in vCenter

1. Power off the vRLI Virtual Machine.

2. Navigate to the Configure tab, then select Settings > vApp Options.

3. Locate the Default Gateway property under the "Properties" list.

4. Edit the value to remove the CIDR suffix (e.g., change 10.x.x.254/24 to 10.x.x.254).

5. Power on the Virtual Machine.

Method 2: Manual Correction via Appliance Shell

1. Log in to the vRLI console as root.

2. Open the network configuration file: vi /etc/systemd/network/10-eth0.network.

3. Ensure the Gateway parameter under the [Network] section does not contain a CIDR suffix:

   [Network]
   Address=10.x.x.x/24
   Gateway=10.x.x.254
   

4. Set correct permissions: chmod 644 /etc/systemd/network/10-eth0.network.

5. Restart the network service: systemctl restart systemd-networkd.

Additional Information

Standard OVF deployment best practices for VMware appliances require that the Gateway field receive a single IP address, while the Subnet Mask or CIDR notation is reserved strictly for the IP Address or Netmask fields.