Changing NICs on Virtual UTM (ESXi 5.5)

Question

Hi All, 
 I am hoping someone can help me as I have run into the issue of the dreaded e1000 NIC issue 'Adapter Reset'. 
 Backgroud: 
 It seems that Sophos have known about issue this for some years, it is in the KIL - https://community.sophos.com/kb/en-us/124067 (just search for e1000), but the guidance they provide still states that the use of the e1000 is best for speeds below 1Gb, see: https://community.sophos.com/kb/en-us/119230 
 Rant over ... 
 Well I have hit this exact error on a customers Virtual UTM, I am now looking for help. 
 The Virtual Host I can only get (very) limited access to via an administrator, I can tell him what I want and he will action this (if he can). 
 in a a week or so I will ask them to change the NICs from e1000 to VMXNet3 cards, I have heard the following; 
 1. That this action will change the NIC order, rendering the UTM Dead in the water - is this true? 
 2. This NIC order can be corrected by editing the "/etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules" (but have also heard this sometimes doesn't work) 
 I would like some guidance on "2" as my system does not have this file. I have also read other articles about what is required but need clarification. 
 How reliable is this?

Argo · Accepted Answer

Hi BAlfson & dswartz, 
 I completed the change yesterday, and this is how I completed the change. 
 1. Configured the 2 x UTMs as HA (Active-Passive), this way I could sync all the data. 
 2. get the Virtual DC to change NICs from e1000 to VMXNet3 on backup UTM. 
 3. Rebooted Backup UTM. 
 - the UTM was effectively dead in the water. 
 - I ran "ifconfig" and found that the interfaces were there but only one was displaying one of the MAC addresses (this was not in the correct position) 
 - i ran "lspci" to check that the VMXNet3 interfaces had been recognized (they had been recognized). 
 4. Used CLI console to change "71-virtual-mac-net.rules" in the /etc/udev/rules.d/ folder. (see below) 
 
 5. rebooted UTM - All worked 
 ------------------------------------- 
 here is the 71-virtual-mac-net.rules file 
 # Ignore HA virtual MAC addresses, so network interface names are not renamed in 70-persistent-net.rules # This should not happen, but there are some buggy network cards out there, e.g. Realtek SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="00:1a:8c:f0:*", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth%n" 
 **below is what I added to get it to work correctly. 
 SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="02:00:7f:**:**:05", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth0" SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="02:00:41:**:**:05", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth1" SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="02:00:61:**:**:04", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth2" SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="1e:00:d8:**:**:d3", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth3" SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="02:00:0b:**:**:04", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth4" 
 ------------------------------------- 
 
 thanks for all your help with this Bob & dswartz.