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virtualman0421
Contributor
Contributor

Default Connection Type in EXSI?

Hello Everyone,

I am implementing VMWARE ESXI at work and need to know what the default connection type is. Is it the VMKernal Port Group or something else. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

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DSTAVERT
Immortal
Immortal

I would have a look at the following Webcast QuickStart and Webcast ESXi Webstart . It will help put a lot of things into perspective.

-- David -- VMware Communities Moderator
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virtualman0421
Contributor
Contributor

Those webcasts dont begin until February and later, I'm looking to deploy this system ASAP. Do you know the default connection type?

Thanks

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DSTAVERT
Immortal
Immortal

They are on demand. You can access them now.

-- David -- VMware Communities Moderator
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DSTAVERT
Immortal
Immortal

What do you mean "default connection type"? View the webcasts.

-- David -- VMware Communities Moderator
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virtualman0421
Contributor
Contributor

I am viewing the webcast now, my off location admin supervisor asked my if the default connection type for EXSI was Virtual Machine Port Group

,Service Console Port Group ,vSwif Port Group , or VMKernal Port Group, and I did not know.

Thanks

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DSTAVERT
Immortal
Immortal

Great. Hopefully you should know more than the admin guy when you are done. Smiley Happy

Good luck and let us know your progress.

-- David -- VMware Communities Moderator
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virtualman0421
Contributor
Contributor

At 1 hour into the webcast the instructor show two Vswitch0 connection types, the VM Ware Network Virtual Machine Port Group, and the VMKernel port housing the management network. He says this is a default installation, but never says which one is the default. It seemed to me that the Virtual Machine Port Group would be the default, be he assigned the IP to the VMkernel. To answer the question would the default connection type be the Virtual Machine Port Group?

Thanks

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DSTAVERT
Immortal
Immortal

The VMkernel port handles network storage (iSCSI, and NFS), vMotion traffic and ESX(i) host management. Referred to as the Management Network. That's the network where you connect the vSphere client. The Virtual machine network is where your virtual machines will be connecting.

-- David -- VMware Communities Moderator
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weinstein5
Immortal
Immortal

The VMkernel Port for ESXi is what is used as you management port - it is this that gets assigned the IP address you will connect a web browser to so you can download the vSphere Client -

The VM Port group is what you will connect your VMs to that will allow them to communicate to the outside world - in the default configuration both the VMkernel Port and VMs will share the same physical NICs -

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If you find this or any other answer useful please consider awarding points by marking the answer correct or helpful
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DSTAVERT
Immortal
Immortal

A default installation needs both a VMkernel connection and a Virtual Machine Port Group connection. Just installing ESXi will by default create a Virtual switch vSwitch0 and the aforementioned connections.

-- David -- VMware Communities Moderator
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virtualman0421
Contributor
Contributor

So the question of "What is the default connection type in EXSI?", has two answers? VMKernel Port and Virtual Machine Port Group? I understand what each one of you are explaining, but the answer to the questions is still not clear.

What is the default connection type in ESXi?

Virtual Machine Port Group

Service Console Port Group

vSwif Port Group

VMKernal Port Group

OR None of these?

Thanks

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weinstein5
Immortal
Immortal

Each one of the connections types is used for a different purpose -First to understand how networking is done in an ESX/ESXi server - at the base level you have a virtual switch. It is to the virtual switch that the physical NICs can be connected - you have three type of virtual switches -

  1. a virtual switch with no physical NICs - used for creating an internal only network that exists entirely inside the ESX/ESXi host

  2. a virtual switch with a single physical NIC - this provides network connectivity to the outside world

  3. a virtual switch with multiple physical NICs - this provides network connectivity to the outside world and provides redundancy and load balancing

Now to the virtual switch you can have three types of network connections - Service Console Port, VMKernel Port and Virtual Machine Port Group

  • Virtual Machine Port - used by the vmkernel for communicating to IP based storage NAS/NFS and iSCSI, VMotion. For ESXi server the vmkernel port is used for management access to the ESXi host

  • Service Console Port - This is port on an ESX server only and is used for management of the ESX server

  • vswif - in essence this is just another name for a Service Console port

  • Virtual Machine Port group - this is used to allow virtual machines to connect to a virtual switch and network to each other and to the outside world -

So you can see for an ESXi host all of these are default connections except for the Service Console Port/vswif which is only available on an ESX host

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DSTAVERT
Immortal
Immortal

Since you have watched the webcast(s) I would suggest that you go through an install. Once you actually start using it it will start to make sense. David has done a good job of outlining what the connections are and their purpose so keep those in mind as you install.

-- David -- VMware Communities Moderator
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