Observability

Host nodes or virtual machine nodes mapped incorrectly for VMAN due to APIPA

Due to duplicate IP address assignment for hosts or VMs caused by Microsoft Windows Automatic Private IP Addressing (APIPA), host nodes or virtual machine nodes have incorrect mapping in VMAN.

First published date

5/3/2024 1:43 PM

Last published date

4/18/2025 12:46 AM

Overview

Due to duplicate IP address assignment for hosts or VMs caused by Microsoft Windows Automatic Private IP Addressing (APIPA), host nodes or virtual machine nodes have incorrect mapping in VMAN.

Product section

Hybrid Cloud Observability

Cause

Automatic Private IP Addressing (APIPA) – e.g. addresses 169.254.X.X – assigned to VMware virtual machines running Microsoft Windows causes duplicate IP address assignment for the VMs, resulting in incorrect mapping of VMs in VMAN. See VMWare’s KB for more information: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1028373.

Resolution

To workaround this issue, try the below steps:

You can set advanced configuration settings for your SolarWinds Platform server to discard the duplicate Automatic Private IP Addressed-hosts or VMs, which corrects the mapping in VMAN.

Important:

You must have VMAN 2023.3.1 or newer installed to be able to use this workaround. If you are intentionally using APIPA for your hosts or VMs, this workaround will affect mapping of those hosts or VMs.

 

  1. Log in to the SolarWinds Platform Web Console.
  2. Navigate to the Advanced Configuration page. To learn how to access the Advanced Configuration page from the SolarWinds Platform Web Console, see Access the Advanced Configuration settings in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console.
  3. For incorrectly mapped host nodes, enter the following regex pattern into the DiscardedHostIpAddrRegex advanced setting under SolarWinds.VIM.Common.VimSettings: 
    ^169\.254\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}$
    Ensure that the AllowUpdateExistingHostToNodeMapping setting is enabled.
  4. For incorrectly mapped VM nodes, enter the following regex pattern into the DiscardedVmIpAddrRegex advanced setting under SolarWinds.VIM.Common.VimSettings. 
    ^169\.254\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}$
    Ensure that the AllowUpdateExistingVmToNodeMapping setting is enabled.
  5. Click Save. 


Automatic Private IP Assigned-addresses for hosts or for VMs (depending on the setting used above) will be removed from the database and will no longer affect mapping.

The new setting for DiscardedHostIPAddrRegex or DiscardedVmIpAddrRegex will take effect automatically after a few minutes and host or VM mapping should be corrected.

Note:

The regex pattern shown above in steps 3 and 4 will discard all APIPA addresses. If you only wish to discard a specific portion of APIPA addresses, you can modify the regex pattern to match the portion you wish to discard.

To undo the change, remove the entries for DiscardedHostIPAddrRegex or DiscardedVmIpAddrRegex. The affected hosts or VMs will be reintroduced to the database and will affect mapping again.

 

Important:

If the suggested workaround did not resolve the issue, then attempt the below. This may be necessary if the device was originally discovered using APIPA, then simply updating the IP will not automatically refresh.

Option 1: 

Remove and re-add the entities. Proceed with caution as this would result in loss of data about the node - all historical data related to the node will be removed.

Option 2:

File a support ticket so we can assist with manually updating the affected records via script.