How to Redeploy an NSX Edge Node Safely

Table of Contents

Introduction

In VMware NSX, Edge nodes play a critical role by providing north-south routing, NAT, firewalling, and load-balancing services. In certain situations such as failed upgrades, configuration corruption, or persistent health issues it may be necessary to redeploy an NSX Edge node.

This article explains when a redeploy is appropriate and provides a safe, step-by-step approach to redeploy an Edge node without disrupting your environment more than necessary.

When Should You Redeploy an NSX Edge?

Redeploying an Edge node is typically considered when:

  • An Edge node is stuck in a degraded or failed state

  • Services (routing, BGP, NAT) are not functioning correctly

  • An Edge upgrade failed or was interrupted

  • Edge health checks consistently fail

  • Reboots and service restarts do not resolve the issue

Redeploying effectively rebuilds the Edge VM while preserving its logical configuration.

Important Considerations Before You Start

Before redeploying an Edge node, keep the following in mind:

  • Traffic impact: Redeploying will cause traffic interruption on that Edge

  • HA pairs: In an active/standby setup, redeploy the standby Edge first

  • Maintenance window: Always perform this during a planned window

  • Configuration safety: Logical configuration is preserved, but runtime state is reset

If possible, validate that another Edge is available to handle traffic.

Solution

Verify the NSX Edge Node

  1. Open an SSH session and connect to the NSX Edge node.

  2. From the CLI, verify the logical routers configured on the NSX Edge node by running the appropriate command.

					get logical-routers

4. Power off the NSX Edge node.

Verify Disconnection from NSX Manager

Run the following API call to check the transport node state:

					GET /api/v1/transport-nodes/<edgenode>/state

The node_deployment_state should display:

					"node_deployment_state": {
    "state": "MPA_Disconnected"
}

A state of MPA_Disconnected confirms that the Edge node is disconnected and safe to redeploy.

Important

  • If the node_deployment_state is Node Ready, NSX Manager will block the redeployment.

  • In this case, the following error will be displayed:

					Error 78006: Manager connectivity to Edge node must be down

Using the NSX UI (Alternative Method)

You can also verify the connectivity status from the Edge Transport Node page in the NSX UI.
A disconnected NSX Edge node will display the following system message:

					Configuration Error: Edge VM MPA Connectivity is down

Redeploying an Auto-Deployed NSX Edge Node

Retrieve the Transport Node Payload

For an auto-deployed NSX Edge node, first retrieve the transport node configuration using the NSX Manager API.

  1. Run the following API call:
					GET https://<NSX-Manager-IPaddress>/api/v1/transport-nodes/<edgenode>

2. Save the full output payload.
This payload will be reused during the redeployment process.

Prepare the Redeploy Payload

  1. Copy the previously retrieved payload.

  2. Paste it into the request body of the redeploy API call.

  3. Verify that the deployment_config section contains correct values for:

    • Compute Manager

    • Compute Cluster

    • Datastore

    • Management Network

    • Data Networks

  4. Ensure these values are consistent with the configuration defined under the node_settings section.

NSX Manager relies on the information in the deployment_config section to redeploy the NSX Edge node to the specified location and resources.

Once the payload has been verified, initiate the redeployment by running:

					POST /api/v1/transport-nodes/<transport-node-id>?action=redeploy
Awid Dashtgoli
Awid Dashtgoli