Our customer had a big problem with a vCenter that managed a vSAN cluster.
The unique solution was to restore the vCenter form backup……but the customer doesn’t have a backup for this virtual appliance or vCenter backup from VAMI (Argghhhhh…).
We have resolved this with a new vCenter installation and this VMware KB.
Moving a vSAN cluster from one vCenter Server to another
An attention point (step 3 of the KB) is the vDS configuration, for bypassing this attention point we have migrated the vDS (in this situation only the vSAN network for our luck) to vSphere Standard Virtual Switch (vSS).
We have used this command on each ESXi to remove the vmkernel from vDS to vSS.
(You need to change your value, vDS Name…IP address etc..)
#Check the vDS and vSS configuration and identify vmnic
esxcfg-vswitch -l
#Remove a vmnic from vDS
esxcfg-vswitch -Q vmnic5 -V 12 DS1vSAN1
#Create a new vSS
esxcli network vswitch standard add –vswitch-name=VSAN
#Assign a vmnic to vSS
esxcli network vswitch standard uplink add –uplink-name=vmnic5 –vswitch-name=VSAN
#Create a PortGroup to vSS
esxcli network vswitch standard portgroup add –portgroup-name=VMK_VSAN –vswitch-name=VSAN
#Assign a vLAN to PortGroup
esxcli network vswitch standard portgroup set -p VMK_VSAN –vlan-id xxx
This is the critical point, we need to move the vmkernel vSAN (Where there is the vSAN traffic) from vDS to vSS.
It is important to check the vSAN status before and after the vmkernel move with this command and wait for the object to rebuild.
The command is
esxcli vsan health cluster
#Remove vmkernel for the vSAN from vDS
esxcli network ip interface remove –interface-name=vmk2
#Add the vmkernel interface to vSS
esxcli network ip interface add –interface-name=vmk2 –portgroup-name=”VMK_VSAN”
#Assign the IP address to vmkernel interface
esxcli network ip interface ipv4 set –interface-name=vmk2 –ipv4=x.x.x.x –netmask=x.x.x.x –type=static
#Assign the interface for vSAN service
esxcli network ip interface tag add –interface-name=vmk2 –tagname=VSAN
#Check if there is communication to other ESXi vmkernel vSAN interfaces IP with vmkping
vmkping -I vmk2 x.x.x.x
#Verify the vSAN status
esxcli vsan health cluster
When the vSAN cluster is all healthy repeat the same operation on all other vSAN cluster ESXi node
After this, you can continue following the link
