Replica Failover Failed VMware Mac Conflict

[bdufour]

weird one, tried to failover a VM last night - errored out with -

Code: Select all

5/9/2019 11:21:23 PM Error    Failed to perform failover to replica Error: Impermissible VPX-assigned Ethernet address: '00:0c:29:d2:f9:0f'. 

It conflicts with VMware reserved MACs for other usage. obviously, couldnt manually power on the VM either.

pretty straight fwd, the VM doesnt have the valid vmware mac. but why? i fixed this by adding the parameter - ethernet0.checkMACAddress=false

all other replicas (same job) have valid macs and i can power them on just fine.

the only thing different btw this VM and the rest is i failed over to the affected VM and failed back to production just a few weeks ago, worked fine. no other replicas were failed over.

this vm has been in production for years and was added via vcenter as the rest of VMs were - plus the failover worked just a few weeks ago. they only difference i can see is the failover/failback i did on this VM.

i tried to open a case - but got this error - Only License and designated Case Administrators can open support cases. Please contact your license administrator to change the permissions.

ive opened cases in the past, so we will have to sort that out.

veeam bnr 9.5u4 - server 2016
ESXi, 6.5.0, 10719125 source host
ESXi, 6.5.0, 5969303 replica host
VM OS 2008 r2
VCSA 6.5.0.22000

[veremin]

The issue needs to be investigated with the support team. As to the problem with opening a ticket, check explanation provided here. Thanks!

[Andreas Neufert]

My guess it that there is a static MAC address defined for a VM. In the old times VMware allowed to set MAC addresses from VMware used areas. With newer ESXi version VMware enforece that these MAC addresses can not be used anymore. https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2035707

[bdufour]

the mac address on the source, and replica VM, is set to automatic, not manual. i thought it was fixed but its not - when i add the parameter for disabling mac checking, i can manually power on the replica VM. but once i kick off the failover job from veeam, i get the impermissible error again and i cant power on the VM manually anymore bc the parameter is removed from the VM config settings.

i can prob just change the mac address, i just want to know why this happened. bc like i said, i failed over/back to this replica a few weeks ago. that was on our old veeam bnr server (decommissioned) with version 9.5 1922 (failover/back worked fine), the error appeared on our new veeam server 9.5u4. may not be related, but the server and version did change.

Case #03558129

[bdufour]

when i manually power up/down the replica (tried several times) it boots and i dont get the error and the parameter is obviously still in the vm config. seems that something in the failover job in veeam is removing that parameter - so i suspect the failover job is causing other issues related to the mac address changing on the replica vm (but i could be wrong, just seems that way to me).

[bdufour]

as a member of this community - i see it as my duty to update this. solved this with below steps and confirmed over the weekend the failover works with no issues.

1. recreated the replica job for this VM.
2. didn’t use reip or network remapping.
3. removed and installed new network adapter on replica VM.
4. kicked off replica job for VM.
5. replica job finished, and the mac didn’t change to previous mac giving the error, still have VM mac.
6. edited job, enabled reip and network mapping.
7. kick off replica job again.
8. still has the correct mac in vmware range.
9. failed over successfully.
10. confirmed mac is still in vmware range after all of this.