routing on vswitch

[dvine]

Hi Guys,

Just trying to to figure out how to get traffic routed between an existing physical subnet and a virtual subnet.

The physical is 192.168.2.0/24. My virtual is 192.168.200.0/24. I have VM's in both groups.

The default gateway on my esxi host is set to 192.168.2.2 (manageable).

Do I need to add a static route on the cisco to route 192.168.200.0 subnet traffic or can I get the vmkernel to do the routing for me? If so, how exactly and where exactly do I do it. I tried esxcfg-route -a on the esxi host, but I didn't have much luck with the results (perhaps an incorrect configuration on my end - you will see in the routing table below).

Sorry - I am a first timer, trying my best to digest it all - the whole networking implementation has been the hardest to grasp.

Servers 2.x - 192.168.2.0/24 (physical subnet)

Servers 200.x - 192.168.200.0/24 (virtual subnet)

Switch Name	Num Ports	Used Ports	Configured Ports	MTU	Uplinks
vSwitch0	128	10	128	1500	vmnic0,vmnic6
PortGroup Name	VLAN ID	Used Ports	Uplinks
Servers - 200.x	0	2	vmnic0,vmnic6
Servers - 2.x	0	2	vmnic0,vmnic6
Management Network	0	1	vmnic6
VMkernel Routes:
Network	Netmask	Gateway	Interface
192.168.2.0	255.255.255.0	Local Subnet	vmk0
192.168.200.0	255.255.255.0	192.168.2.2	vmk0	<- I added this route (do I need this or can vmkernel handle the routing?)
default	0.0.0.0	192.168.2.2	vmk0

Thanks Guys. My head is just about to explode, so I've turned to the forum. Be researching this for the last two day without any definitive answers.

[a_p_]

Assuming you don't have a VLAN capable physical network, you could simply setup a second vSwitch without uplinks and add a virtual router (e.g. pfSense) which is connected to both networks and does the routing. With a VLAN capable network, configure the switch ports as 802.1Q (trunk/tagged) ports and set the VLAN ID's on the port groups.

Btw. why did you configure vmnet6 as standby?

André

[rickardnobel]

What kind of physical switch and router do you have?

If you already have a Cisco router it might be the simplest to continue to use that.

I do also agree of Andrés question of the standby vmnic6. You do most likely not need that configuration. Instead both can be active for increased performance.

[dvine]

Gentlemen,

Thank you for your assistance it was very useful it helped me understand significantly better. I now have a partial working now set-up based on the VST arrangement http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1&e.... Somewhat of a complex configuration though, so please bare with me here.

With what I have done thus far, it has lead me to another few questions regarding the set-up.

• R0 - 192.168.2.1 is the standard local default gateway - this router has all remote sub-net routes configured. Note: this router is managed by our ISP for our private IP network.
• R1 - 192.168.2.2 is the internet router that I manage - VLAN 200 has been configured on this router.

I face two issues with this VLAN arrangement. Remote sites/sub-nets (i.e. R3 192.168.3.x / R5 192.168.5.x / R12 192.168.12.x and so forth) are not aware of the VLAN 200 (192.168.200.0/24) as it has only been configured on the internet R1 192.168.2.2 router. Does this mean I have to contact my ISP and ask them to configure VLAN 200 (192.168.200.0/24) on all my inter-site routers (R0, R3, R5, R12), or can RIP do this for me?

One other thing - on this newly configured VLAN, clients cannot ping past the R1 192.168.2.2 to get to the next hop of R0 192.168.2.1 for inter-site communication (non native VLAN's only). What do I need to configure on R1 192.168.2.2 to get VLAN clients to communicate and see R0 192.168.2.1?

With R0 192.168.2.1, I think I need to contact our ISP and ask them to create a logical sub interface for VLAN 200 on all the remote routers?

Here is the config for VLAN 200 on R1 192.168.2.2:

interface FastEthernet2

switchport access vlan 200

switchport mode trunk

no ip address

!

interface Vlan200

description esxi server vlan

ip address 192.168.200.1 255.255.255.0

ip nat inside

ip virtual-reassembly in

!

SW1 and SW2 have been set-up with trunk ports configured with tagged VLAN 200 assigned.

VLAN clients (Servers) are configured with 192.168.200.1 as their default gateway. They can only communicate with devices directly connected to R1 192.168.2.2.

I have also assigned all vmnics as active uplinks vs the previous active/passive arrangement in the original posts screenshot.

Thanks for your assistance guys, hopefully I can finally get my head around all of this after some further feedback and finally complete the set-up.

Thanks once again.

[dvine]

Hopefully this makes a little bit more sense than my explanation above.

[dvine]

Hi Guys,

Just an update. I have asked my ISP to update our routers and mark vlan 200 on R0.

Final question remaining and all has been answered. How do I get my vlan 200 clients to see beyond R1 if I am connecting vlan clients via this R1 FastEthernet2 interface?

Thanks.