Change duplex setting on vSphere Service Console

During a training a student accidentally changed the duplex setting of the vmnic for the service console to fixed 1000Mbit full duplex. This isn’t so bad, if the vmnic wasn’t on a 100Mbit switch!

So I had to go to the service console to change the duplex setting back to auto.
I expected to use the esxcfg-vswif command. But with this command you cannot change the duplex setting. After some investigation I discovered to use normal Linux command like ethtool.

To see the current settings:

ethtool vmnic1

To change the settings to 1000Mbit full duplex:

ethtool -s vmnic1 autoneg off
ethtool -s vmnic 1 speed 1000 duplex full

To change it backup again to auto:

ethtool -s vmnic1 autoneg on

About Michael
Michael Wilmsen is a experienced VMware Architect with more than 20 years in the IT industry. Main focus is VMware vSphere, Horizon View and Hyper Converged with a deep interest into performance and architecture. Michael is VCDX 210 certified, has been rewarded with the vExpert title from 2011, Nutanix Tech Champion and a Nutanix Platform Professional.

Email • Twitter • 

categories Uncategorized | June 29, 2010

4 Comments to “Change duplex setting on vSphere Service Console”

  1. By Frank, July 5, 2010 @ 19:23

    …and I would expect to complete this task with esxcfg-nics 😉

    • By Mike, July 6, 2010 @ 08:58

      Frank, I also meant esxcfg-nics, Sometimes something is right in your head but not on paper 😉 Thanks

  2. By Frank, July 5, 2010 @ 19:23

    …and I would expect to complete this task with esxcfg-nics 😉

    • By Mike, July 6, 2010 @ 08:58

      Frank, I also meant esxcfg-nics, Sometimes something is right in your head but not on paper 😉 Thanks

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.