Migrating from Embedded NIC to 2.5Gbps Add-in NIC in HPE DL360 Gen9 (Proxmox)

charleslcso

Member
Oct 1, 2022
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Hello, the 1Gbps embedded NIC is not cutting it anymore. I wanna migrate everything (network wise) in the PVE 7.4-20 and PBS 2.4-7 to a newly added Intel 2.5Gbps NIC in my HPE DL360 Gen9.

I asked DeepSeek for the steps, and I need human experts to recommend if the steps are indeed workable.

PS: I might use Bonding, and definitely won't use PCI passthrough.

Thank you very much!



Migrating from Embedded NIC to 2.5Gbps Add-in NIC in HPE DL360 Gen9 (Proxmox)

This guide covers migrating your Proxmox VE network configuration, VMs, and containers from the embedded NIC to a new 2.5Gbps PCIe NIC while minimizing downtime.


Step 1: Prepare the New NIC

  1. Install the 2.5Gbps NIC physically
    • Power off the server.
    • Insert the NIC into a PCIe slot.
    • Boot up and verify detection:

      bash

      lspci | grep -i ethernet
    • Check if the driver is loaded (lspci -k).
  2. Identify the new NIC interface name

    bash

    ip a
    • Look for a new interface (e.g., enp4s0, ens1f0).

Step 2: Configure the New NIC in Proxmox

Option A: Manual Network Migration (Recommended for Minimal Downtime)

  1. Edit /etc/network/interfaces

    bash

    nano /etc/network/interfaces
  2. Add the new NIC configuration (keeping the old one for fallback):

    conf

    auto enp4s0 # New 2.5Gbps NIC
    iface enp4s0 inet manual

    auto vmbr0
    iface vmbr0 inet static
    address 192.168.1.100/24
    gateway 192.168.1.1
    bridge-ports enp4s0 # Change from old NIC (e.g., eno1) to new NIC
    bridge-stp off
    bridge-fd 0
  3. Apply changes

    bash

    systemctl restart networking
  4. Test connectivity

    bash

    ping 8.8.8.8

Option B: Failover Bonding (For Redundancy)

If you want to use both NICs (old + new) in a bond:

conf

auto bond0
iface bond0 inet manual
bond-slaves eno1 enp4s0 # Old and new NICs
bond-miimon 100
bond-mode active-backup # Or balance-alb for load balancing

auto vmbr0
iface vmbr0 inet static
address 192.168.1.100/24
gateway 192.168.1.1
bridge-ports bond0
bridge-stp off
bridge-fd 0
Then restart networking:

bash

systemctl restart networking

Step 3: Update VM/Container Network Settings

  • VMs/CTs using vmbr0 will automatically switch to the new NIC (no changes needed).
  • If using PCIe passthrough, update the VM config:

    bash

    qm set <VMID> -net0 virtio,bridge=vmbr0