Automated iDRAC vSwitch Recreation Post-Reboot of ESXi Host Driven by Stale Hardware Configuration Injections.

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• The hypervisor persistently recreates an unexpected converged switch (cswitch) designated as iDRAC and binds it to the vusb0 virtual network interface upon every system reboot.
• The issue persists even after explicitly disabling the native Baseboard Management Controller network feature (esxcfg-advcfg -s 0 /Net/BMCNetworkEnable)   .
• The vendor-specific service module package is verified as absent from the hypervisor, yet the behavior continues.

[root@<esxi>:~] esxcli software vib list | grep -i dcism
(No output returned).

 

• The system initialization logs capture from "/var/log/vmkernel.log" the unexpected activation and runtime override of the hardware-injected management virtual switch interface.

NetPortset: 2236: Activating portset #3 as iDRAC (cswitch) with 9216 ports, index mask is 0x3fff
NetPort: 1621: enabled port 0x600000b with mac <##:>
cswitch: VSwitchActivate:10099: [nsx@6876 comp="nsx-esx" subcomp="vswitch"]Activating switch iDRAC by setting runtime option override.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi

Cause

The persistence of the iDRAC virtual switch occurs because its architectural definition remains statically saved inside the hypervisor's local /etc/vmware/esx.conf configuration file from an earlier deployment phase.

Resolution

Follow these steps to remove the stale configuration lines from the hypervisor and prevent the hardware-level re-injection of the virtual switch:

1. Establish a secure session: Connect to the affected ESXi host using an SSH client as an administrative user "root".
2. Confirm that the native Baseboard Management Controller network feature is actively disabled within the system configuration parameters.
3. Verify that the stale management virtual switch is still actively registered in the system's runtime database: esxcli network vswitch standard list
4. Delete the stale configuration entry to remove it entirely from the host configuration matrix: esxcli network vswitch standard remove -v <iDRAC>
5. Execute a configuration synchronization backup script to permanently write this deletion to the active boot bank image: /sbin/auto-backup.sh
6. Reboot the ESXi host and inspect the kernel log file (/var/log/vmkernel.log) to verify that the initialization scripts no longer instantiate or override the virtual interface
7. To block persistent hardware-level profile injections during system initialization, access the out-of-band iDRAC UI and turn off the OS to iDRAC Pass-Through functionality.
8. Engage Dell Hardware Support if you require further technical assistance or if the symptom remains unresolved

Additional Information

ESXi creates standard switch vSwitchBMC with uplink vusb0 automatically: https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/376173/

iDRAC vSwitch Recreated on Reboot Due to OEM Jumpstart Scrip:  https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/446189

If additional assistance is needed with troubleshooting, reach out to Broadcom support by creating a support case using the instructions at Creating and managing Broadcom support cases.