vLAN Question

[onlineserv]

To whom it may concern,

I have on my switches tagged a new vLAN, and bound 4095 to my port group. When tagging the new VLAN ID to my virtual nic I lose connectivity on my default untagged vLAN. Can one of you please provide some guidance as to what I may be doing wrong here?

[Lalegre]

Hello @onlineserv,

If what you want to achieve is Virtual Guest Tagging (VGT), you need to have the Switch Physical Port configured with trunk, the port group with VLAN 4095, and then tag the proper VLAN inside your guest.

Now, if you are just tagging a single VLAN on the physical port, you just need to create a port group with VLAN 0 and not tag anything on the guest.

But depends on what you want to achieve.

[onlineserv]

Thank you, I did exactly what you've outlined to achieve VGT. I had a switch port carrying my default vLAN and added a new vLAN and tagged that vLAN to the switch port. I then as you've stated set vLAN 4095 and tagged vLAN 50 to the vmxnet adapter under advanced settings, however when doing so i am no longer able to access the system on the default vLAN.  Could I be missing something?

[Lalegre]

You added a new VLAN to the physical port, but is the port in trunk mode?

[Lalegre]

@onlineserv,

Got something from what you wrote, and that is VMXNET. That adapter is not suitable for VGT, you need to have E1000 on the VM ans install the 802.1q driver for that inside the VM. 

If your OS is Windows 64-bit it should come embedded inside, if not, you could install it. Take a look at the following article, is an old one but still aplicable: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1004252

[onlineserv]

Thank you,

I had the e1000 nic installed but could not find anywhere to assign the vLAN tag. Can you provide some guidance with this? Also the kb you sent me speaks to the process working with a vmxnet nic as well is this not the case, or am I missing something? 

lastly this is Windows Server 2022. so I'm assuming all of the drivers and features would be present....is that so?

[Lalegre]

@onlineserv,

I truly do not remember at this time what happened with VMXNET3 and VGT, but what I do remember is that the driver from Intel was not recognizing it as the VMXNET adapter is VMware proprietary and not Intel, opposite as the E1000 one.

So setting the VLAN on the E1000 is from inside Device Manager once you install all the needed from the KB shared before. Here the step by step on setting the VLAN: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005677/ethernet-products.html

Yes, with Windows Server 2022, it should come.

[CyberNils]

VMXNET3 supports VGT. I use it all the time.

[Brisk]

If you're trying to do it in NSX then you can define the VLAN tags needed on the segment when you create it. Judging from the question I think this topic was placed in the wrong section and should be under vSphere.

Regardless, you need to configure the port group as a trunk port group for this to work. Tagging with tag 4095 will not give you the same results. What is your specific use case for using VGT? IN my experience, it's easier to create a dedicated port group with just 1 tag for specific VM needs.

[CyberNils]

What do you mean by "Tagging with tag 4095 will not give you the same results"?

On a VSS you tag with 4095, on a VDS you select VLAN Trunking. These options gives the same result as far as I understand.

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vsphere.security.doc/GUID-3BB93F2C-3872-4F1...