How to configure NAT in ESXI 6.5 for windows

[Dsenapati]

Hi

Recently I got my unmanaged server from kimsufi-ovh , and install ESXI. But they don't provide any additional IPs to configure your virtual machine. So how I can do port forwarding with NAT ? Please guide thorough the process .

Thanks

[larstr]

Dsenapati,

There is no built in NAT support in ESXi. Only hosted products like VMware Workstation, Player and Fusion can support it out of the box. If you need NAT functionality in an ESXi environment you will need to setup a router VM that can provide this functionality. In a lab enviromnent I have for example used pfSense for this purpose.

Lars

[Dsenapati]

so I can't use NAT with ESXI? then how I can get my windows virtual machines to work which are on ESXI? No way ?

[daphnissov]

Using NAT has nothing to do with whether VMs will "work". ESXi is not consumer software designed for homes. If you need to NAT all your VMs to get Internet access, it's up to you to provide that networking external to ESXi or alternatively install and configure your own VM-based router.

[Dsenapati]

well I know it will "work" it is working without network. It's on Kimsufi-OVH data centre, so it's not for home based or anything stupid like that. The thing is I really have no idea about the network configuration as I thought they must have software support. But I found they don't have anything to with software as they IAAS provider. I was asking how anyone can make ESXi get to work with port forwarding .

[larstr]

Dsenpati,

Did you try this solution?

https://support.us.ovhcloud.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002175944-How-to-Connect-a-VM-to-the-Internet-U...

Lars

[daphnissov]

If they are doing the hosting for you, you'll have to speak with them for any form of PAT or port forwarding. ESXi does not handle routing internally.

[Dsenapati]

that's the ovh and have a virtual mac address bar..but for Kimsufi there is nothing. No way to get virtual mac.

I was wondering the same ip of esxi server whatever like 91.121.23.34 , can I use it as my virtual machine using the DNS  via IPV4 ?

[ChrisFD2]

By getting your VMs to work, what do you mean? Do you mean network access? By default the host will create a Port Group called 'VM Network'. Think of this as a VLAN on a switch, by default there will be no VLAN set. So the host management and this Port Group will be on whatever network is presented to it by the switch, if this is a home environment then I'm going to presume that this will be the default VLAN. If you build a VM and attach it on this Port Group, it will get an IP address from your DHCP server, usually your home router.

[Dsenapati]

well in my case it is in data center, not in home. It's a standalone server . The things Happened when I have created a windows virtual machine via ESXi it worked but didn't work. That's what happened with me

[daphnissov]

You really need to talk to Kimsufi. This is not an ESXi issue.

[Dsenapati]

I understand mate . It's issue from the physical router and firewall they have . I really did ask them , as the reply, they said we are iaas provider , so we don't have software support team only hardware. So I am hopeless. Maybe I will go back to OVH again and they have virtual mac which can help me with ESXI setup.

Thanks mate for helping me out

[DanJGF]

You need an additional failover IP to be configured in the public side of a routing appliance. The inner side of this simple NAT router would be in an inner LAN sitting in a dedicated ESXi virtual switch zone. It's a 5 minute operation.

We have created a preconfigured OpenWRT appliance to allow fast and simple deployment of such topology. It includes especific support for OVH/Soyoustart/Kimsufi dedicated servers running ESXi.

This post explains the matter in detail and how it works.

https://33hops.com/vmware-esxi-nat-with-custom-firewall.html

If you just want to jump directly to configure the router, you can download it at Sourceforge and follow the README.txt file.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/openwrt-vmware-esxi-appliance/files/

It's a two step configuration: input the virtual MAC at the outer leg of the router and assign the IP to the router, we have even created an installation script to make it even simpler.

The package appliance is less than 5 MB in size, but it's fully functional. It uses 50MB of space once deployed and runs on 256 MB of RAM. It comes with e1000 NICs in sake of compatibility, you can change the NICs by VMXNIC3 devices though.