Change the management vmkernel IP and DNS settings from DHCP to static without DCUI

This is in my home lab. I installed vsphere 6.0 on my non-HCL Asus MB and left it on DHCP, turned it off a few days, and then turned it on back again to see its DHCP address changed. 

Since I'm studying  for VCAP-DCA and will use this lab more, I figured might as well set it to static and not rely on chance and have to check the display to find the IP again. Part of VCAP-DCA is getting very comfortable using the command line, so I determined I would do it with esxcli.

Pic from DCUI before doing the change:

Notice in this command that both the address and DNS are being acquired from DHCP for the vmk0 interface.

[root@arielitox:~] esxcli network ip interface ipv4 get
Name  IPv4 Address  IPv4 Netmask   IPv4 Broadcast  Address Type  DHCP DNS
----  ------------  -------------  --------------  ------------  --------
vmk0  192.168.1.12  255.255.255.0  192.168.1.255   DHCP              true
vmk1  192.168.1.13  255.255.255.0  192.168.1.255   STATIC           false

A way to find out how to change it is to execute the command without parameters and get the help

[root@arielitox:~] esxcli network ip interface ipv4 set
Error: Missing required parameter -t|--type
       Missing required parameter -i|--interface-name

Usage: esxcli network ip interface ipv4 set [cmd options]

Description:
  set                   Configure IPv4 setting for a given VMkernel network interface.

Cmd options:
  -i|--interface-name=<str>
                        The name of the VMkernel network interface to set IPv4 settings for. This name must be an interface
                        listed in the interface list command. (required)
  -I|--ipv4=<str>       The static IPv4 address for this interface.
  -N|--netmask=<str>    The static IPv4 netmask for this interface.
  -P|--peer-dns         A boolean value to indicate if the system should use the DNS settings published via DHCP for this
                        interface.
  -t|--type=<str>       IPv4 Address type :
                            dhcp: Use DHCP to aquire IPv4 setting for this interface.
                            none: Remove IPv4 settings form this interface.
                            static: Set Static IPv4 information for this interface. Requires --ipv4 and --netmask options.
                         (required)

I'm setting the same IP but static:

[root@arielitox:~] esxcli network ip interface ipv4 set -i vmk0 -I 192.168.1.12 -N 255.255.255.0 -P false -t static

and we can now confirm the results

[root@arielitox:~] esxcli network ip interface ipv4 get
Name  IPv4 Address  IPv4 Netmask   IPv4 Broadcast  Address Type  DHCP DNS
----  ------------  -------------  --------------  ------------  --------
vmk0  192.168.1.12  255.255.255.0  192.168.1.255   STATIC           false
vmk1  192.168.1.13  255.255.255.0  192.168.1.255   STATIC           false

Now we just told ESXi not to get the DNS settings from DHCP, but, what settings will it use then? Let's dig.

[root@arielitox:~] esxcli network ip dns server list
   DNSServers: 192.168.1.1

That is in fact what I had through DHCP. I tested it survives a reboot; nonetheless I point this command out so that you also remember to check the DNS settings when you do this. I did these tests by changing the IP through the client, and in there the DNS option is in a separate location and must be changed manually.

So there you go. Once I checked back the DCUI, it indeed reports it as a static address

and it can be checked in the client as well.

Was there a gotcha here? Not sure. Things worked as expected; maybe the -P option is a bit of a gotcha, so that you don't leave DNS relying on DHCP, if you are doing this with the client.