How do I do this?

[JoshG1]

I apologize in advance for the newbie question. I'm tyring to setup DHCP in MS windows on a single VM in ESX 3.5. The ESX host has two physical NICs. One NIC for each subnet of DHCP hosts. I know I need at least one Vswitch to connect the two physical NICS to the VM. But how many VNICs do I need? The long and short of it is that I want DHCP requests to come in on one NIC and go out the same NIC for that subnet and vice versa. Any help would be appreciated.

[mcowger]

You need 1 vnic per vswitch.

--Matt

[JoshG1]

Can I have two VNICs on one VM pointing to the same Vswitch?

[RParker]

Can I have two VNICs on one VM pointing to the same Vswitch?

Yes, but you can't split DHCP to 2 different NIC's. Maybe if it would be better to tell us exactly what your goal is and maybe we can help you with a solution.

[mcowger]

At least with ISC DHCP, the dominant DHCP in the unix world, you most certainly can do these between different NICs, though a better solution is often to set an ip helper address in your switches.

--Matt

[RParker]

At least with ISC DHCP, the dominant DHCP in the unix world

Yes, wouldn't it be nice. Unfortunately in the Windows world we don't have those cool Unix abilities... And like you mentioned, I am finding more things I like about Linux/Unix.. That's cool info. Thanks!

[mcowger]

That would be annoying.

Still, I would recommend to the OP NOT to do the dual NIC thing, and instead set an iphelper address on his switches if possible.

--Matt

[RParker]

That would be annoying.

Annoying to configure / Administer, but knowledge part is interesting. That may be interesting to see how it works, just for knowledge purposes.

Still, I would recommend to the OP NOT to do the dual NIC thing, and instead set an iphelper address on his switches if possible.

Yes and not to mention, one server can serve many segments over 1 NIC, don't need separate NICS for each DHCP segment, now THAT's annoying.

[JoshG1]

The goal is to have a DHCP server with two NICs, one in each subnet. The requests come in on different subnets for different DHCP pools and are responded to in their own respective NIC/network.

This worked before VMware, so how do I do it now.

I have to apologize for not having more specific information. This is not my network, it's my customer's network.

[mcowger]

create 2 vswitches. attach pNIC1 to vSwitch1. Attach pNIC2 to vSwitch 2.

Create 2 NICs for your VM. attach vNIC1 to pSwitch1. Attach vNIC2 to pswitch 2.

Done (except for the software bit).

--Matt

VCP, vExpert, Unix Geek