Configuring Network Ports

[keegster]

Hi all,

Under Inventory -> Networking in my vSphere 4 client I can see that someone has set-up several "Networks"

How do I understand which physical ports these are assigned to, or understand how to route traffic.  I.e. If I have a DMZ network and one NIC going out to the DMZ how do I make a virtual machine use this port?

Thanks

C

[kjb007]

Virtual machines talk to Portgroups

Portgroups are connected to vSwitches

and vSwitches uplink through physical NICs

Physical NICs talk to physical switches

Next to the physical NIC, there should be a little box, and provided you have CDP enabled, you can find out which switch ports those physical NICs are connected to.

Here are a couple of resources to help with virtual Networking:

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/virtual_networking_concepts.pdf

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/technology/cisco_vmware_virtualizing_the_datacenter.pdf

-KjB

[weinstein5 · Accepted solution]

Networking is accomplished through the use of virtual switches. The physical network are assigned to the virtual switch and act as 'uplink ports'. There are three types of virtual switches:

1. Internal-Only Virtual Switch - this provides for networking that remains entirely within you ESX host
2. Virtual Switch with one uplink port - provides not only networking between the ports conencted to the switch but also provides for traffic to move to a physical network
3. Virtual switch with 2 or more uplink ports - provides not only networking between the ports conencted to the switch and provides for traffic to move to a physical network but also allows for NIC Teaming

All networking for your ESX host goes thorugh the virtual switch both management and vm traffic. There are two kinds of ports that are attached to the virtual switch:

1. VMkernel Port - Used for management traffic to your ESXi host including vmotion and iSCSI. In an ESX host this is also called the Service Console Port. This port wiill be assigned its own uniique IP address
2. Virtual Machine Port Group - Your virtual machines will connect to the virtual machine port group - this does not get an IP address as the IP{ address iss asasociated with the virtual amchine

WHen looking at your networking in the VI client the right hand side will be the uplink ports - the physical posrts in your ESX host. The left hand side will be the port or port groups attached to the virtual switch