I recently had to change the IP address on the primary Service Console of a couple of VMware ESX 3.5 servers that I had deployed for work, due to an IP subnet change. Although not terribly complicated, I had to do some digging for a complete solution.
NOTE: You must be logged in as root for this process!
Initially, I removed the existing Service Console, from the KVM DIRECTLY ATTACHED to the server! If you SSH into your box to do this, you will lose connectivity immediately after the first command is issued!
First, remove the existing Service Console. Then recreate it with the desired, new, IP address. Then you will need to change your default gateway, and then change the IP address in two other config files. Here are the commands I used:
[root@esx01 /]#esxcfg-vswif -d
[root@esx01 /]#esxcfg-vswif -a vswif0 -p Service\ Console -i 192.168.1.100 -n 255.255.255.0 -b 192.168.1.255
[root@esx01 /]#vi /etc/sysconfig/network
(Change the GATEWAY= to the correct default gateway for the server.)
[root@esx01 /]#vi /etc/vmware/esx.conf
(Change the /adv/Misc/HostIPAddr to the correct NEW IP address of the server.)
[root@esx01 /]#vi /etc/hosts
(Change the IP address for the server.)
