VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0.x
NOTE: If there are routes listed that were not statically added, they may have been dynamically added through ICMP Redirects. These routes cannot be removed through ESXi. See Internet Control Management Protocol Redirects (2081185).
To successfully add a static route, the host must have direct subnet access to the router being specified through one of its vmkernel ports. If not, it cannot communicate with the gateway router and reports the error:
Unable to route to gateway address x.x.x.x no route to that subnet exists
For example, to route to the 192.168.100.0/24 network through the gateway router 192.168.0.1, the host must have a vmkernel port configured in the 192.168.0.0/24 network. Without this vmkernel port, it cannot communicate with 192.168.0.1 to forward traffic relating to this static route.
You must ensure that an entry exists for the network in the host's routing table as a Local Subnet Access network. To validate this, use the esxcfg-route -l command.
You cannot add a new gateway for an existing subnet in the vmkernel as you cannot have two default gateway. In the aforementioned example, if an attempt is made to add a new gateway for 192.168.100.0/24 network, an error similar to this occurs:
Duplicate route to network x.x.x.x/xx found. Please delete the old route first.
Note: When configuring routes in auto-deploy, the preferred way to create custom network entries use the answer file from a reference host. For more information, see VMware AutoDeploy Documentation Center.
For more information, see Troubleshooting vSphere Auto Deploy (2000988).
Adding a static route to an ESX host for an extra Service Console interface