10.5 Troubleshooting Networking Issues

As an appliance administrator or network administrator, you may need to troubleshoot some basic networking issues before you can successfully initialize the CloudAccess appliance. For example, if your appliance boots onto the network and gets the wrong IP address or falls back to the default IP address, you can use a basic set of commands in the network troubleshooting console to help you resolve these issues.

The console is in a chroot jail environment that gives you temporary connectivity to the appliance. You can use the cat command to check files such as /etc/resolv.conf and /etc/hosts, which exist in memory in the chroot environment. When you run the initialization process, the real files are updated on the system. Similarly, actions such as updating the IP address or route are not persistent and are reset if you reboot the appliance. You must run through the initialization process to set them permanently.

NOTE:As long as you have not yet completed the initialization process on the appliance, you automatically have console access without login credentials. Logins to the troubleshooting console are no longer available once you have completed the initialization process. However, you can change network settings after this point using the Init screens.

To troubleshoot network issues:

  1. Using the vSphere client console or a similar tool, access the troubleshooting console.

  2. (Optional) Press the Tab key twice to see all available commands. Some commonly used and supported commands are listed below.

  3. (Conditional) Use the following steps if you need to change appliance network settings:

    1. Delete the default route: route del default

    2. Create an alias with the IP address that you want to use: ifconfig eth0:0 IP_address netmask subnet

    3. Enter ifconfig again to verify that the address is now available.

    4. Add a route: route add default gw gateway_IP eth0:0

    5. Check connectivity to various resources: for example, ping gateway_IP or ping www.google.com

    6. (Conditional) If DNS name resolution is not functioning correctly, add an entry to the /etc/resolve.conf file as follows: echo "nameserver 0.0.0.0" > /etc/resolv.conf

      At this point, you should have connectivity to the appliance. You can run through the initialization process and configure the appropriate settings permanently.

    7. In a browser, enter https://IP_address/appliance/Init.html, replacing IP_address with the IP address that you used for your alias.

    8. At the certificate warning prompt, add an exception.

    9. In Step 1 - Network of the initialization process, replace the default network values with your preferred IP address and other network settings and click Next.

    10. After CloudAccess validates your entries, click OK to apply the new settings. CloudAccess applies the settings permanently and restarts services as needed.

      If you return to the troubleshooting console, it now displays your preferred IP address. You can use the ifconfig command to verify that the new settings are working correctly.

    11. Continue with the remaining initialization steps.

Supported commands include the following:

The following table provides examples of some common actions and commands.

Table 10-2 Examples

Action

Command

Set the IP address of the appliance.

 
ifconfig eth0 static_IP netmask netmask up

Delete the default route.

 
route del default

Set the default route (or gateway).

 
route add default gw gw_IP eth0

Update the time.

 
sntp -P no -v -r pool.ntp.org

Check networking.

 
ping 8.8.8.8

traceroute 8.8.8.8

Verify that DNS is working.

 
nslookup www.google.com