Changing VMWare ESX 3 IP and Hostname

I have recently moved a VMWare ESX 3 cluster to our tier 2 data center.  The old cluster (IBM x3655 servers) were replaced by new IBM 3850 M2 servers quad – quad core 2.9ghz Xeons with 64 gigs of RAM.  I am now tasked with renaming and IPing the systems at the “tier 2 location”.  Since I was stuck at the collocation until 4 am the morning of the collocation revamp, I only wired all the servers up and configured the management cards.

esxcfg-vswif -i 192.x.x.x -n 255.255.255.0 vswif0

vi /etc/sysconfig/network

  • change hostname
  • change gateway

vi /etc/hosts

  • change hostname and ip for new server

vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scrips/ifcfg-vswif0

  • change IPADDR value to new IP

Once the configuration changes have been made, you can execute the following to get tcp/ip connectivity:

execute /etc/init.d/networking restart

Note:  I had to restart the server to get the hostname to update correctly to the vmvi server and web interface.

~ by Kevin Goodman on October 20, 2008.

Posted in VMWare
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2 Responses to “Changing VMWare ESX 3 IP and Hostname”

  1. Just a couple of notes, first the command is esxcfg-vswif. You left out the “W”.

    Also if you’re running HA, be sure to also modify /etc/opt/vmware/aam/FT_HOSTS othrwise you’ll get an ip address is inconsistent error trying to start HA back up.

    Adam Cahill said this on November 18, 2008 at 11:29 am

  2. Fixed the vsif typo. Thanks for the information! It’s amazing that in 151 views, no one has mentioned that until now. Thanks!

    kcollo said this on November 18, 2008 at 11:48 am

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