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Skuba_85554's avatar
Skuba_85554
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
Mar 13, 2012

virtual edition problem on vmware esx 5!

we have been running big-ip 10.2.2 build 763.3 final on vmware esx 4.1.0 build 260247 for many months without issue, but recently we migrated to esx 5.0.0 build 469512 and all of our pool members went down! i logged on to the big ip command line and found that i was unable to ping any members (even though they're in the same subnet)

 

 

after a lot of panic and troubleshooting, we migrated the big ip back to a vmware host running vmware esx 4.1.0 build 260247 and it started working again!

 

 

i'm going to log this with support, but i wondered if this is a known problem? or if there's an faq page which states which versions of vmware are supported for big ip virtual edition?

 

 

thanks

 

config
design
  • nitass's avatar
    nitass
    Icon for Employee rankEmployee
    Mar 13, 2012
    this is from manual.

     

     

    "BIG-IP® VE is compatible with VMware ESX® 4.0 and 4.1, and VMware ESXi® 4.0, 4.1 update 1, and 5.0 hosts"

     

     

    Manual Chapter: Getting Started with BIG-IP Virtual Edition

     

    http://support.f5.com/kb/en-us/products/big-ip_ltm/manuals/product/ve_setup_guide_1022_vmware/1.htmlconceptid
  • Skuba_85554's avatar
    Skuba_85554
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Mar 13, 2012
    thanks nitass. yes, it's there in black and white but unfortunately it didn't work :(

     

     

    i've logged a call with f5, but i wonder if we have uncovered some sort of bug? the big ip unit loaded up fine and i was able to logon to the management interface, but it simply wouldn't pass traffic to the back end pool members. as soon as we put it back on a esx 4.1.0 it worked fine (without making any changes at all on big ip)
  • Skuba_85554's avatar
    Skuba_85554
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Mar 13, 2012
    the strange thing is, the flexible virtual nic used for management continued to work, but the vmx net 3 nic used for application traffic stopped working
  • hwidjaja_37598's avatar
    hwidjaja_37598
    Icon for Altostratus rankAltostratus
    Mar 13, 2012
    VMXNET3 driver version in ESXi 5.0 is different with ESX/i 4.1. Can you try to apply HF1?
  • nitass's avatar
    nitass
    Icon for Employee rankEmployee
    Mar 13, 2012
    good point!

     

     

    i checked again and seeing there is customer using 10.2.2 hf1 on esx5.
  • Skuba_85554's avatar
    Skuba_85554
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Mar 14, 2012
    thanks for the info. i don't think the manual says you need a specific hotfix, but thanks for letting me know. i'm also awaiting the official response from the ticket that i have logged with f5
  • Skuba_85554's avatar
    Skuba_85554
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Apr 04, 2012
    my case is still open with F5, but i haven't been given a solution yet :(

     

     

    just browsing the community groups, i also found another user experiencing the same problem but on v11...

     

    https://devcentral.f5.com/Community/GroupDetails/tabid/1082223/asg/42/aft/1182518/showtab/groupforums/Default.aspx