How to add more than 10 networks adapters on 1 VM on ESXi 6.7?

[sirjay]

I have ESXI 6.7 on Mac MIni Late 2014

There is a need for me to have Windows VM with around 20 network adapters.

The problem is I can add only 10, but adding more than 10 I get an error:

Failed to reconfigure virtual machine Windows Server 2012 R2. Number of virtual devices exceeds the maximum for a given controller

How to solve it? I did not find an answer when Google it.

Moreover, if I install 2nd virtual machine, I can have common 20 network adapters, but this way is bad as I got 2 virtual machines running with lags.

[daphnissov]

Why would you need 20 vNICs? The maximum is 10 as you're finding out.

[a_p_]

I'm afraid that there's no workaround. The maximum "Virtual NICs per virtual machine" is 10.

see https://configmax.vmware.com/guest

André

[sirjay]

daphnissov​ a.p.​

Are you sure guys? I extremely ( ! ) need a lot of virtual devices for one VM. This is a matter of life and death!! I can pay you if you find out how to configure.

[a_p_]

Sorry, but there's nothing I can do for you, as this is a technical limitation as shown in the Configuration Maximum documentation.

Maybe there's a workaround available to achieve your goal. For that however, you'd need to explain what exactly you are trying to achieve.

André

[daphnissov]

Please tell us why you need 20 NICs on a single VM and what you're trying to do.

[continuum]

you can use 10 regular nics plus additional USB-nics

[sirjay]

I need to create a mobile proxy server.

For example, I have 20 routers at home with 20 4G/LTE modems (each one connected to 1 router).

With this I can create 20 channels.

There is Windows Server 2012 (or Windows 7) on ESXi.

So I create 20 virtual adapters for Windows VM. Then with 3proxy (https://3proxy.ru/?l=EN) I do such schema:

Internal traffic coming to home IP, then with NAT (port forwarding) it redirects to Windows VM, then it looks at what port and depending on each port I redirect traffic to IP of network adapter.

For example for proxy <home_ip>:1001

<home_ip>:1001 ->192.168.0.100:1001 (Windows VM (incoming traffic)) -> 3proxy -> network adapter assigned to 1001 port -> router ip gateway -> modem

The problem is I can not create a lot of network adapters directly on Windows – it does not work, that's why I started to use ESXi. Or else I have to buy 20 network cards.

[l1ghtman2k]

I had a use-case where I needed more than 10 NICs, and due to the nature of my problem, I was able to make around that might not fit your use case. However, you could consider doing the following:

Create 3 virtual routers (those could be things like pfsense).

Connect those 3 routers into 20 networks (you can split them into 7,7,6).

Add additional interface to each router, and make sure that extra interface is facing the VM that you need to have 20 NICs on.

Finally, set up proper IP addressing on those routers, alongside with proper routing rules on the VM that you needed 20 NICs on. This way your host will know which of the 3 routers to send packets to, and the router will know which NIC forward it to.

(Janky solution, however, this is best I got)

[zman442]

I know this is an old post but why not just configure sub-interfaces and a VLAN trunk, that way you can assign multiple VLANs to a single virtual NIC?  This can be done on Windows and Linux.

[andyhubbell]

I am interested in the solution mentioned by zman422 and have been trying to hunt down some documentation, or at the least good walk-throughs on how to do this. 

[a_p_]

What you want to look for is VGT (Virtual Guest Tagging) where a driver within the guest OS does the VLAN tagging.
the following link might help:
https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vsphere.networking.doc/GUID-7225A28C-DAAB-4...

André

[Mystic67]

You can use aliases on the same NIC, example for ubuntu