Chapter 3 Basic Networking with vNetwork Standard Switches

Add a Virtual Machine Port Group

Virtual machine port groups provide networking for virtual machines.

Procedure

1 Log in to the vSphere Client and select the host from the inventory panel. 2 Click the Configuration tab and click Networking.

3Select the Virtual Switch view.

vSwitches appear in an overview that includes a details layout.

4On the right side of the page, click Add Networking.

5Accept the default connection type, Virtual Machines, and click Next.

6Select Create a virtual switch or one of the listed existing vSwitches and the associated physical adapters to use for this port group.

You can create a new vSwitch with or without Ethernet adapters.

If you create a vSwitch without physical network adapters, all traffic on that vSwitch is confined to that vSwitch. No other hosts on the physical network or virtual machines on other vSwitches can send or receive traffic over this vSwitch. You might create a vSwitch without physical network adapters if you want a group of virtual machines to be able to communicate with each other, but not with other hosts or with virtual machines outside the group.

7Click Next.

8In the Port Group Properties group, enter a network label that identifies the port group that you are creating.

Use network labels to identify migration-compatible connections common to two or more hosts.

9(Optional) If you are using a VLAN, for VLAN ID, enter a number between 1 and 4094. If you are not using a VLAN, leave this blank.

If you enter 0 or leave the option blank, the port group can see only untagged (non-VLAN) traffic. If you enter 4095, the port group can see traffic on any VLAN while leaving the VLAN tags intact.

10Click Next.

11After you determine that the vSwitch is configured correctly, click Finish.

VMkernel Networking Configuration

A VMkernel networking interface is used for VMware vMotion, IP storage, and Fault Tolerance.

Moving a virtual machine from one host to another is called migration. Using vMotion, you can migrate powered on virtual machines with no downtime. Your VMkernel networking stack must be set up properly to accommodate vMotion.

IP storage refers to any form of storage that uses TCP/IP network communication as its foundation, which includes iSCSI, FCoE and NFS for ESX. Because these storage types are network based, they can use the same VMkernel interface and port group.

The network services that the VMkernel provides (iSCSI, NFS, and vMotion) use a TCP/IP stack in the VMkernel. This TCP/IP stack is completely separate from the TCP/IP stack used in the service console. Each of these TCP/IP stacks accesses various networks by attaching to one or more port groups on one or more vSwitches.

ESX Configuration Guide

TCP/IP Stack at the VMkernel Level

The VMware VMkernel TCP/IP networking stack provides networking support in multiple ways for each of the services it handles.

The VMkernel TCP/IP stack handles iSCSI, NFS, and vMotion in the following ways.

niSCSI as a virtual machine datastore.

niSCSI for the direct mounting of .ISO files, which are presented as CD-ROMs to virtual machines.

nNFS as a virtual machine datastore.

nNFS for the direct mounting of .ISO files, which are presented as CD-ROMs to virtual machines.

nMigration with vMotion.

nFault Tolerance logging.

nProvides networking information to dependent hardware iSCSI adapters.

If you have two or more physical NICs for iSCSI, you can create multiple paths for the software iSCSI by configuring iSCSI Multipathing. For more information about iSCSI Multipathing, see the iSCSI SAN Configuration Guide.

NOTE ESX supports only NFS version 3 over TCP/IP.

Set Up VMkernel Networking

Create a VMkernel network adapter for use as a vMotion interface or an IP storage port group.

Procedure

1 Log in to the vSphere Client and select the host from the inventory panel. 2 Click the Configuration tab and click Networking.

3 In the Virtual Switch view, click Add Networking.

4Select VMkernel and click Next.

5 Select the vSwitch to use, or select Create a virtual switch to create a new vSwitch.

6Select the check boxes for the network adapters your vSwitch will use.

Select adapters for each vSwitch so that virtual machines or other services that connect through the adapter can reach the correct Ethernet segment. If no adapters appear under Create a new virtual switch, all the network adapters in the system are being used by existing vSwitches. You can either create a new vSwitch without a network adapter, or select a network adapter that an existing vSwitch uses.

7Click Next.

8Select or enter a network label and a VLAN ID.