Hi,
I have a setup where I have 8 ESXi VMs on one physical ESXi host. Each ESXi VM has 9 virtual network adapters, e1000. Several times a day, 2 or 3 network adapters suddenly show up as "down". Host and guest ESXi VMs are 5.5 GA builds. Promisc mode is allowed on all uplink vSwitches on the host ESXi. VMs are virtual hw version 10. I've tried disconnect/connect of the virtual adapters from the host ESXi, but no change. I'm having to reboot the virtual ESXi to get connectivity back as of now.
~ # esxcfg-nics -l
Name PCI Driver Link Speed Duplex MAC Address MTU Description
vmnic0 0000:02:00.00 e1000 Up 1000Mbps Full 00:50:56:8e:14:ce 1500 Intel Corporation 82545EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper)
vmnic1 0000:02:02.00 e1000 Up 1000Mbps Full 00:50:56:8e:15:30 1500 Intel Corporation 82545EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper)
vmnic2 0000:02:03.00 e1000 Up 1000Mbps Full 00:50:56:8e:17:57 1500 Intel Corporation 82545EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper)
vmnic3 0000:02:04.00 e1000 Up 1000Mbps Full 00:50:56:8e:24:d6 1500 Intel Corporation 82545EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper)
vmnic4 0000:02:05.00 e1000 Down 0Mbps Full 00:50:56:8e:01:e0 1500 Intel Corporation 82545EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper)
vmnic5 0000:02:06.00 e1000 Up 1000Mbps Full 00:50:56:8e:75:22 1500 Intel Corporation 82545EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper)
vmnic6 0000:02:07.00 e1000 Down 0Mbps Full 00:50:56:8e:49:ad 1500 Intel Corporation 82545EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper)
vmnic7 0000:02:08.00 e1000 Up 1000Mbps Full 00:50:56:8e:73:fc 1500 Intel Corporation 82545EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper)
vmnic8 0000:02:09.00 e1000 Down 0Mbps Full 00:50:56:8e:51:e7 1500 Intel Corporation 82545EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper)
One more quick question: where do I get the vmware tools to install into the ESXi VM?