How To Fix Nexenta Network Issue In Virtual Machines

When installing Nexenta into a virtual machine, networking does not work after the initial installation. During the installation procedure everything works as expected, it detects the network card and dhcp works as expected. However after rebooting, dhcp fails as it has not brought up the network interface.

You can confirm it has not initiated the network interface by running this command at a terminal:

root@nextest:~# ifconfig -a
root@nextest:~# cat ifconfig 
lo0: flags=2001000849 mtu 8232 index 1
        inet 127.0.0.1 netmask ff000000 
lo0: flags=2002000849 mtu 8252 index 1
        inet6 ::1/128

As you can see it only lists local loopback devices.

This problem is caused because the NWAM (NetWork Auto Magic service) service is not running. To fix it, all you need do is enable the NWAM. Again from a console run the following command:

svcadm enable nwam

Your network interface should now be up and your networking working. If you check ifconfig again you should see your interface details:

root@nextest:~# ifconfig -a
lo0: flags=2001000849 mtu 8232 index 1
        inet 127.0.0.1 netmask ff000000 
e1000g0: flags=1004843 mtu 1500 index 2
        inet 192.168.199.130 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 192.168.199.255
        ether 0:c:29:16:9b:15 
lo0: flags=2002000849 mtu 8252 index 1
        inet6 ::1/128 
e1000g0: flags=2004841 mtu 1500 index 2
        inet6 fe80::20c:29ff:fe16:9b15/10 
        ether 0:c:29:16:9b:15