ASP Developer Network - Brought to you by Steve Radich and BitShop, Inc. - http://www.bitshop.com

ASPDeveloper

ASPDeveloper.Net / VirtualServerFAQ.COM

Make sure you go to our home page for:

* Virtual Server 2005 FAQ
* ASP.Net 2.0 Information
* ASP.Net 2.0 Streaming Tutorials
* ASP.Net 2.0 HTML based Tutorials

Made possible by Business Internet Technology Shop (BitShop)

Virtual Server 2005

Recent Virtual Server 2005 posts

* When rebooting VM guest.. VM hangs in the bios screen / blank scre
* host network adapter "Microsoft Loopback Adapter" is invalid or mi
* VS05R2: Disable Host Networking
* File Server on VM
* trouble with starting VS after password reset
* 5 Virtual Guests won"t auto start on host startup, but 5 do.
* CDRom / DVD Drive Issue
* No connectivity between guest servers on the same host
* stupid question (really)
* Network Activity
* VHDmount, can it be used to connect a new vhd disk?
* WANTED - recommendations on running virtual domain controllers
* Hyper-V: Ctrl-V + Type Clipboard Text
* <server> could not initialize the emulated Ethernet controller.
* Hyper V - Copying Files between parent and child
* STOP Error 0x000000d1 on two seperate Hosts running VS2005 R2 SP1
* Virtual Server and vbs.
* Issue After Expanding Virtual Hard Drive
* Hyper-V multi-monitor?
* VMWare 1068 Error-Dependency service or group failed to start.

Add Solution

Virtual network connection unplugged?

Source: microsoft.public.virtualserver
Sent: 04/19/2008
From: Scott Bussinger <(email address - cut out)>
Message:

I've got a fairly straightforward Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 set up
with 6 virtual machines running on it. It will run great for weeks and
then suddenly one of the VM's will get an error that amounts to
"network connection unplugged".

The VM is still running and if I connect to the VM using the
administration website, I can disable the network connection in the VM
and then re-enable it and everything's working again. It's not always
the same VM (it's happened on three different VM's on the server at
various times). The other VM's and the host server are not affected by
this event. There's only one NIC on the server and it's shared by the
server itself and all the VM's. The physical NIC is a "Realtek RTL
8168/8111 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC" with fairly current drivers
(9/20/2007). The VM's are all configured to run as the administrator.

So how exactly does a non-physical NIC get "unplugged"?

I've searched the group archives and found quite a few posts over the
years with people having similar issues, but the only real solution I
found concerned permissions issues on the *.VNC file -- since my VM's
come up fine after rebooting and they're running as the administrator,
this doesn't seem related (I also verified that the administrators
group has full control access to the directory/files).

Help! Anybody got an idea? Thanks!

Post Reply | This is Spam! | Mark as Spam

Related Messages

Re: Virtual network connection unplugged?

Sent: 04/20/2008
From: "Charlie Russel - MVP" <(email address - cut out)>
Message:

Honestly, I'd suspect the NIC itself. RealTek NICs don't have a great
reputation, and having a single physical NIC that is doing the work of 6 VMs
and the physical machine as well, I'm suspecting that it's periodically
dropping the "heartbeat" packet that let's the VM know that the NIC is still
there. Personally, I'd try adding an additional NIC to share the load, or
just replace the RealTek with a good server class NIC.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/xperts64
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel

"Scott Bussinger" <(email address - cut out)> wrote in message
news:(email address - cut out)...

Show quoted text

> I've got a fairly straightforward Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 set up
> with 6 virtual machines running on it. It will run great for weeks and
> then suddenly one of the VM's will get an error that amounts to
> "network connection unplugged".
>
> The VM is still running and if I connect to the VM using the
> administration website, I can disable the network connection in the VM
> and then re-enable it and everything's working again. It's not always
> the same VM (it's happened on three different VM's on the server at
> various times). The other VM's and the host server are not affected by
> this event. There's only one NIC on the server and it's shared by the
> server itself and all the VM's. The physical NIC is a "Realtek RTL
> 8168/8111 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC" with fairly current drivers
> (9/20/2007). The VM's are all configured to run as the administrator.
>
> So how exactly does a non-physical NIC get "unplugged"?
>
> I've searched the group archives and found quite a few posts over the
> years with people having similar issues, but the only real solution I
> found concerned permissions issues on the *.VNC file -- since my VM's
> come up fine after rebooting and they're running as the administrator,
> this doesn't seem related (I also verified that the administrators
> group has full control access to the directory/files).
>
> Help! Anybody got an idea? Thanks!

Re: Virtual network connection unplugged?

Sent: 04/20/2008
From: Scott Bussinger <(email address - cut out)>
Message:

Hi Charlie! I haven't seen you in ages -- since the old TeamB days.
Nice to run into you again!

I'm not terribly fond of RealTek stuff myself -- it always seemed a
bit on the cheap side. This is the on-board NIC and I was hoping it
would do the job. This server may be supporting 6 VM's, but they're
very light usage. The total CPU usage on the server rarely exceeds 2%
unless I'm actively doing maintenance on it. The network traffic is
about the same.

I'll try updating the NIC software first, just in case. Then I'll see
about replacing the NIC. I was hoping it was more of a known software
issue with Virtual Server, but that would be too easy.

Thanks!

Show quoted text

> Honestly, I'd suspect the NIC itself. RealTek NICs don't have a great
> reputation, and having a single physical NIC that is doing the work of 6 VMs
> and the physical machine as well, I'm suspecting that it's periodically
> dropping the "heartbeat" packet that let's the VM know that the NIC is still
> there.
> Personally, I'd try adding an additional NIC to share the load, or
> just replace the RealTek with a good server class NIC.

Re: Virtual network connection unplugged?

Sent: 04/20/2008
From: Scott Bussinger <(email address - cut out)>
Message:

> try turning off TopHAT and TCP Offload.

I'd not run into those tuning features before you mentioned them. I
just did a bit of research and I'm still confused. :) Are you
suggesting this for the host, the VM's or both? I'm running Win2003
for the host server and WinXP for the VM's. Do these settings still
apply? The articles I found mostly seemed to be centered around Vista.

Is the reason for disabling these because they don't play nicely with
the virtualized NIC's or because the technology can be a bit flakey on
some hardware or something else?

..

I played with one of the betas and have to say that I liked it as
well. I'm not inclined to mess with it more though until it's finally
released. Then perhaps I'll upgrade this server to Win2008 and Hyper-
V. It's a quad core machine with 4 GB ram so it should run it nicely.

I dropped out of TeamB back when they made the switch from Compuserve
because I'd simply been doing it long enough. Lately though I've been
thinking I might get more involved online again. Maybe I'll look into
this new-fangled fad I keep hearing about -- I think it's called
blogging? <grin>

Anyway, thanks for the help!

Show quoted text

> Also, frankly, if you've got the hardware for it, I'm liking Hyper-V a lot=
> Hey, Scott. =A0We _do_ go back a ways, don't we?!

Re: Virtual network connection unplugged?

Sent: 04/21/2008
From: "Charlie Russel - MVP" <(email address - cut out)>
Message:

The networking "features" are automatically turned on when you install
Server 2003 SP2 and you have a GigE NIC. Turning them off (on the host) will
improve the behaviour of the NIC. An updated driver might improve things,
but I'm still betting that a better NIC is the answer.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/xperts64
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel

"Scott Bussinger" <(email address - cut out)> wrote in message
news:(email address - cut out)...

I'd not run into those tuning features before you mentioned them. I
just did a bit of research and I'm still confused. :) Are you
suggesting this for the host, the VM's or both? I'm running Win2003
for the host server and WinXP for the VM's. Do these settings still
apply? The articles I found mostly seemed to be centered around Vista.

Is the reason for disabling these because they don't play nicely with
the virtualized NIC's or because the technology can be a bit flakey on
some hardware or something else?

I played with one of the betas and have to say that I liked it as
well. I'm not inclined to mess with it more though until it's finally
released. Then perhaps I'll upgrade this server to Win2008 and Hyper-
V. It's a quad core machine with 4 GB ram so it should run it nicely.

I dropped out of TeamB back when they made the switch from Compuserve
because I'd simply been doing it long enough. Lately though I've been
thinking I might get more involved online again. Maybe I'll look into
this new-fangled fad I keep hearing about -- I think it's called
blogging? <grin>

Anyway, thanks for the help!

Show quoted text

> try turning off TopHAT and TCP Offload.
> Also, frankly, if you've got the hardware for it, I'm liking Hyper-V a
> lot.
> Hey, Scott. We _do_ go back a ways, don't we?!

Re: Virtual network connection unplugged?

Sent: 04/21/2008
From: "Bill Grant" <not.available@online>
Message:

"Scott Bussinger" <(email address - cut out)> wrote in message
news:(email address - cut out)...

Like Charlie, I would suspect that it was a problem with the driver for
the built-in NIC in the host. This driver has to work in combination with
the Virtual Machine Network Services to provide networking to the virtual
machines. VMNS traps traffic for the vms and directs it to the correct
virtual NIC based on MAC addresses (and also puts traffic from the virtual
NIC on to the physical network). If this isn't happening the virtual NIC
will appear to be unplugged.

Some drivers (especially older ones) don't co-operate well with VMNS.
Disabling TCP Offload in the driver will sometimes clear up the problem, but
upgrading to a new driver is probably a better idea. (Or better still
installing a good NIC in a slot as Charlie suggested).

Show quoted text

> try turning off TopHAT and TCP Offload.

Post Reply | This is Spam! | Mark as Spam

Other groups

Virtual PC (Mac)(3592)	Virtual PC(12844)	Virtual PC (French)(496)
Virtual Server 2005(6245)

Our Sponsors

Virtual Server 2005 Info Here!
http://www.aspdeveloper.net

Wiki

Blogs

Articles

Image galleries

File galleries

Forums

Maps

Directories

ASP Developer Network (since 1996) - Brought to you by Steve Radich and BitShop, Inc. - http://www.bitshop.com
Copyright © 1997-2005 by BitShop, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
No content may be reproduced in any form without written permission from BitShop, Inc.
We will be honored to assist with reproduction rights on our material if you contact us.
We also can provide print articles for your magazine, private training seminars at your site, and conference presentations.
Thank you for visiting. Please bookmark our site if you found it useful!
If you wish to make a donation it will help further the development of these free resources: