Issue

Use this article to troubleshoot a missing gateway on Windows VMs after a ZSphere upgrade.

Symptoms

• After the upgrade, a Windows VM loses its gateway, and the network is unreachable or incompletely configured.
• The VM alert records contain information related to vmtools changing the IP address.

Environment

• Product: ZVF
• Versions: 4.10.12, 4.10.19
• Component: ZSphere
• Affected object: VMTools/network
• Scenario: Management plane and upgrade issues. Confirm the current version, deployment topology, storage type, and operation timeline.

Possible causes

• After the upgrade, VMTools/guest tools interact abnormally with the Windows NIC configuration.
• Guest OS static IP addresses, gateways, NIC names, or multi-NIC settings are rewritten by the tools.
• The tool version or platform network-configuration synchronization logic changes across the upgrade.

Resolution

Perform the following checks in sequence, and record the affected objects, occurrence time, complete error messages, and current state.

1. Confirm the affected VM scope, Windows version, number of NICs, and IP configuration method.
2. Check the VM alert records, audit records, and management logs for the time at which vmtools changed the IP address.
3. Log in to the guest OS and check the gateway, DNS, static routes, and NIC configuration.
4. Before bulk processing, validate the VMTools version, network configuration, and restart behavior on one test VM.

Remediation

1. On one affected VM, restore the correct gateway, DNS, static routes, and NIC configuration, and verify that network connectivity is restored.
2. If the issue is related to VMTools or a post-upgrade network-configuration change, first confirm the remediation result on a test VM, then apply it to affected VMs one by one.

Verification

• The affected VM can access the default gateway, DNS, and expected service network.
• The network configuration remains correct and is no longer lost after restarting the VM.