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Adding a static route on VCSA 6.5

I recently upgraded my lab vCenter to the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) v6.5.

As I need a static route on my network, I went to add that in the same way that I’ve done for other VCSAs, only to find that the networking has changed.

VCSA 6.5 now uses systemd-networkd to control networking. Any attempt to use “service network restart” will generate a bunch of error messages about “exiting with error 6”. Editing files in /etc/sysconfig/network  will have no discernable effect.

So how do you add a static route under the new networking regime?

Log on to your VCSA using ssh (or the console) and start a shell.

cd /etc/systemd/network

There you will find all the network config files.

Typically you will have just one, named “10-eth0.network”.

The contents of this file are relatively self explanatory:

[Match]
Name=eth0
 
[Network]
Gateway=192.168.1.254
Address=192.168.1.40/24
DHCP=no
 
[DHCP]
UseDNS=false

Add a new section at the bottom of the file using your favourite text editor:

[Route]
Gateway=192.168.1.20
Destination=192.168.2.0/24

Again, the format for this is pretty obvious.
Once that’s saved, run:

systemctl restart systemd-networkd

Check that your route has taken using

root@vc01 [ ~ ]# ip route show
default via 192.168.1.254 dev eth0  proto static
192.168.1.0/24 dev eth0  proto kernel  scope link  src 192.168.1.40
192.168.2.0/24 via 192.168.1.20 dev eth0  proto static
Linux, VMware, ,

Linux with no monitor

I have an old Linux machine with no monitor attached (i.e. headless) which I use as a server.

It was running an old version of Linux so I updated it to Ubuntu using the process to upgrade an existing Linux installation over a network connection. Worked like a dream.
At the end of the process I rebooted the machine but then realised that Ubuntu doesn’t run a ssh server by default.
I couldn’t log in on the console because I had no monitor and the default Ubuntu install boots to the Gnome GUI which is impossible to drive ‘blind’. Here’s how I sorted it.

  1. Open one of the alternate text terminals by hitting ctrl-alt-F2 on the machine’s keyboard.
  2. Enter your username, press return.
  3. Enter your password, press return.
  4. Enter sudo apt-get install openssh-server, press return.
  5. Enter your password, press return.

With careful typing, that should get you logged in and install and start the ssh daemon. You can then log in remotely.

Linux