How to Add Additional Physical NICs to XenServer

From the XenServer Command Line Interface (CLI), issue the following command:

xe pif-list

Press Enter.

Note: If you have more than one XenServer in the pool, you must issue the xe host-list command to list all the XenServer hosts and write down the Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) of the host that you added the new NIC, then issue command xe pif-list host-uuid=[uuid of the XenServer host]

The preceding command lists all the physical NICs of that XenServer. If you do not see the additional NIC, you must scan for new physical interface(s) on a XenServer and issue this command:

xe pif-scan host-uuid=[uuid of the XenServer host]

Press Enter.

Use xe pif-list again and you can see the new NIC.

If you see the device of the new NIC with similar to this __tmp206888048,  you must remove it and introduce so it can recognize in the correct way such as ethX.

xe pif-forget uuid=[uuid of __tmp206888048 that you want to forget]

xe pif-list,  you won’t see __tmp206888048 anymore.

Introduce the additional physical NIC to the XenServer so it can recognize it from the XenCenter.

ifconfig –a

Press Enter.

Similar to the following output is generated:

ifconfig: __tmp206888048 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:15:17:6B:6A:31
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

Note: The __tmp206888048 is still there with the MAC address 00:15:17:6B:6A:31. You must write down the MAC address 00:15:17:6B:6A:31 so later, you can introduce that MAC address for the next available NIC device such as ethX.
Now you can introduce the new physical NIC(s) to the XenServer. xe pif-introduce host-uuid=[uuid of the XenServer host] device=[machine-readable name of the interface (for example, eth3)] mac=00:15:17:6B:6A:31
Press Enter. The command returns a UUID, for example: 83750d2d-dd36-787c-da1c-951d7afc2cf0
Plug that new UUID 83750d2d-dd36-787c-da1c-951d7afc2cf0

xe pif-plug uuid=83750d2d-dd36-787c-da1c-951d7afc2cf0

xe pif-list to see the new PIF

Open XenCenter and the new physical NIC(s) are displayed.