Recently when installing ESXi 4.1 for a customer I noticed a little quirk in the new setup of the management console that had me chasing my tail for a good while and I thought I would share my experience with you guys so you didn't make the same mistake.

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So here's the scenario... I'm installing ESXi 4.1 on a server on ports that do not have trunking enabled. I configure the IP on NIC0 put in my DNS entries and the hostname and I'm good to go. I then log into the console of that box and begin setting up the network on the vSwitch and adding my other networks. After adding a second NIC to the vSwitch and setting the load balancing to "Route based on IP hash", I hit save and my configs took effect. I then configured trunking on those ports and the server will no longer respond to pings and is totally inaccessible except from the physical console. I tried breaking the port channel groups, reconfiguring the NICS but had no luck.... What it ends up coming down to was the Management Network on the vSwitch. In my experiences in the past whatever settings you made to the vSwitch replicated down to the subsequent networks.... Meaning that the load balancing should have propogated all the way through to the setting "route based on IP Hash". This is not the case for the management network, it was still set to "Route based on the originating virtual port ID". Once I broke trunking long enough to go back in and change this setting everything popped up fine. Granted this is not something major, but it was just a little "gotcha" that definitely got me and wasted time, so keep an eye out! Below is a copy of the Port Channel group I was using along with the interfaces.

Hope this helps!

interface Port-channel1
description ESX01 Trunk
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport trunk native vlan 4094
switchport mode trunk
switchport nonegotiate
spanning-tree portfast trunk

interface GigabitEthernet1/0/5
description ESX01-NIC0
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport trunk native vlan 4094
switchport mode trunk
switchport nonegotiate
speed 1000
duplex full
channel-group 1 mode on
spanning-tree portfast trunk

interface GigabitEthernet2/0/5
description ESX01 NIC2
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport trunk native vlan 4094
switchport mode trunk
switchport nonegotiate
speed 1000
duplex full
channel-group 1 mode on
spanning-tree portfast trunk