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VMWare Server has been acting up lately. The network connection to guests gets dropped seemingly randomly. The problem is noticed as dropped network connections are normarlly noticed: web pages are unavailable, logins fail (eg. on XP a message about AD not accepting connections or not recognizing you), and if the guest runs a service, the service is unavailable.
The problem can sometimes be fixed (or even avoided) by pinging from the guest to some external address. I've also had luck in disconnecting and reconnecting the network device for the guest.
The host is always available and the guests can be controlled via the VMware remote interface. Our VMware Server boxes use bridged networking, so that the host and guests are all on
our internal lan as peers.
This problem seems pretty impossible to debug because it's only random guests at random times being affected, so I went looking for some answers.
I've been seeing this more lately, thought I haven't updated VMware server since the summer. I installed a RH9 vm back in Dec (maybe that's causing some conflicts), but can't say for sure if it wasn't already happing before then.
Spoiler: There doesn't seem to be a specific solution from VMware. The best I got was [a recommendation to upgrade to ESXServer|http://kb.vmware.com/vmtnkb/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=1012&sliceId=SAL_Public&dialogID=7213757&stateId=0%200%207207941&doctag=Author,%20KB%20Article] (right). To be fair, this article also includes information on setting all ports from autonegotiate to static port settings. This comes close to making sense, at least as a work around, but it's pretty annoying to say the least. I try to avoid this kind of work because it is a configuration headache went setting up machines. A valid question is, if this is fixed in ESX Server 1.5.2 patch 3, what version on VMWare Server is this fixed in.
The most helpful post and longest thread of attempted solutions [Intermittent connection errors to guest VMs|http://kb.vmware.com/vmtnkb/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=VMTN-F219-T43340-M410106&sliceId=M410106&dialogID=7213757&stateId=0%200%207215064&doctag=Forum%20Posts] includes attempted fixes with some success of changing the virtual network card driver and installing the latest VMware tools and checking for duplicate MAC addresses in the guest. These are all worth persuing. I know we have some older VMware tools installed (don't know how this would impact with the Linux boxen without UIs, it's certainly more related to getting the network driver with vmware tools). Anyway, this thread is well worth reading to completion.
I found at least four other threads discussing this problem with some potential causes:
* [Guest OS drops network connection|http://kb.vmware.com/vmtnkb/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=VMTN-F219-T52517-M461948&sliceId=M461948&dialogID=7213757&stateId=0%200%207207941&doctag=Forum%20Posts]
* [Random Network Disconnects|http://kb.vmware.com/vmtnkb/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=VMTN-F219-T43340-M410106&sliceId=M410106&dialogID=7213757&stateId=0%200%207215064&doctag=Forum%20Posts]
* [Network on guest OS keeps dying|http://kb.vmware.com/vmtnkb/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=VMTN-F219-T49107-M441594&sliceId=M441594&dialogID=7213757&stateId=0%200%207207941&doctag=Forum%20Posts]
* [Two Network Cards lost connection|http://kb.vmware.com/vmtnkb/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=VMTN-F219-T38915-M394920&sliceId=M394920&dialogID=7213757&stateId=0%200%207207941&doctag=Forum%20Posts]
I found these searching the VMWare KnowledgeBase for "lost network connection guest"
If anybody knows of a solution, please do share it.
