6.5

Table Of Contents
Solution
The installation process manually assigns the correct IP addresses to each NIC on the Secondary server. If no
VMware Channel connection occurs between the servers, verify the conguration of the IP addresses on the
Secondary server's channel NICs. Check the settings for the Principal (Public) NIC. The conguration error
can remain unrecognized until you perform a switchover or a failover occurs.
To capture the identities of all of the NICs on the Secondary server prior to installing vCenter Server Heartbeat,
open a Windows Command Prompt on that server and execute the following command:
ipconfig /all > ipconfig.txt
The output of this command saves the name, TCP/IP conguration, and MAC address of each NIC on the
Secondary server to a le called ipcong.txt, which is present on that server after the PnP phase of the vCenter
Server Heartbeat install completes. Compare the pre-install and post-install state of each NIC by running
ipcong /all from a Windows command prompt and compare the output of this command with the content
of ipcong.txt.
The MAC address of each NIC is connected to the physical identity of each card and never changes. You can
identify each NIC by its MAC address and determine its original name and network conguration, even if this
was updated by the PnP process.
VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat Packet Filter Is Enabled on the Channel NIC(s)
Proper conguration requires that the packet lter be disabled on the VMware Channel NIC. When the packet
lter is enabled on the channel NICs, the following symptoms are encountered.
Problem
Interference with network trac across the VMware Channel results in an intermittent channel connection or
no channel connection at all.
Cause
During installation, the VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat Packet Filter is installed and enabled on all NICs
on both the Primary and Secondary servers. The Packet Filter on the VMware Channel NICs on each server is
disabled later in the installation of vCenter Server Heartbeat. If the vCenter Server Heartbeat Packet Filter is
left enabled on one or more channel NICs after installation completes, it can interfere with network trac
across the VMware Channel.
Solution
Click the Properties tab for each Channel NIC on both servers and verify that the check box for vCenter
Server Heartbeat Packet Filter is cleared, so that the Packet Filter is disabled on that NIC.
92 VMware, Inc.
Administrator Guide