Setup VSwitch and NAT on 1st esxi server. How do I deploy 2nd ESXi server and have it connect to VSwitch of 1st server?

[bangsters]

Hi.

I have followed instructions on the forums on how to sortoff implement NAT on my ESXi guests. I have created a vswitch not connected to any physical NIC. Then I setup a guest as a firewall which is connected to both a physical network and to the vswitch I created. After this, all my guests in the vswitch are working fine and are running behind this firewal.

Now I am deploying a second ESXi server. I want the guest OSes to be behind the firewall of the 1st server, so as not to manage multiple firewalls/gateways. How can I accomplish this? Both server1 and server2 are connected on the same physical switch, but vswitch of server1 is not connected to any physical nic or network directly, and is going through a guest setup as firewall/router.

Please advice.

Thanks

[bangsters]

If it helps, I found this image on another thread which I followed, although I used a linux virtual firewall/router in place of the windows virtual router. Now how do I connect the second ESXi to this?

[bangsters]

anyone???

[Rumple]

Both server1 and server2

are connected on the same physical switch, but vswitch of server1 is

not connected to any physical nic or network directly, and is going

through a guest setup as firewall/router.

You will need at least 2 network cards in each ESX host.

physical NIc 1 will connect to the Public physical network on each esx host and to the public vswitch on each esx host

physical nic 2 will connect to the private vswitch (behind the firewall) and will require an isolated switch or a crossover cable to link the private vswitches together.

[bangsters]

Thanks! Problem is I only have 2 physical nics for each server. And one of the nics of each server already connect to an isolated gig switch for ISCSI.

Can I just connect the 1st nic to the vswitch instead? thus making the vswitch on the same physical switch as that of the public switch, thus no longer isolated? Is this alright to do?

[bangsters]

problem solved! I used the vswitch with the 2nd nic connected to the physical gig switch used for ISCSI traffic. Since my ISCSI network is private, it is still secure to share the physical switch for traffic between esxi servers.