VI3 Networking - VLANS Question

[nsolop]

Hi all, I'm setting up 2 new ESX server 3.01 on a customer office.

During the setup the wizard asks for the networking settings and one of the fields is the VLAN ID.

I asked the networking team if they are using VLANs, the answer was yes and they gave me the VLAN id and told me that the port on the physical switch was on "trunk" mode.

I configured the networking settings using the VLAN ID they provided me and at the end of the installation I found myself without connectivity with the server.

After some troubleshooting from the command line I changed the service console VLAN configuration in order to do not use any VLAN, the networking team changed the port mode on the physical switch to "access" and after all that changes I had connectivity with the box.

Now the question is, if they are using VLANs and I'm going to need that the vms running on the ESX boxes to use VLANs do I need to set the VLAN ID during the setup of the box in order to provide a VLAN ID to the service console?

I'm working on HP BLADE Servers.

Thanks for your help in advance.

Nicolas Solop.

[esiebert7625]

VLAN ID's are only used if you are going to use multiple VLAN's on one physical switch port. When you use multiple VLANs on one port all traffic must be tagged with a VLAN ID to know which VLAN to use. This is called 802.1Q VLAN tagging. Otherwise you do not need to set a VLAN id if you are only using one VLAN.

VMware ESX Server 3 802.1Q VLAN Solutions - http://www.vmware.com/pdf/esx3_vlan_wp.pdf

Networking Virtual Machines - http://download3.vmware.com/vmworld/2006/TAC9689-A.pdf

Networking Scenarios & Troubleshooting - http://download3.vmware.com/vmworld/2006/tac9689-b.pdf

ESX3 Networking Internals - http://www.vmware-tsx.com/download.php?asset_id=41

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Thanks, Eric

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[VirtualNoitall]

Hello,

Here is a doc that I used when i sat down with our network guys before getting all this setup: http://blog.scottlowe.org/2006/12/04/esx-server-nic-teaming-and-vlan-trunking/

It might help to do the same with the network guys from your client. It got us all on the same page.

Hope that helps!

[Anders_Gregerse]

As others have stated you don't have to use a VLAN if only 1 vlan is used. It would normally be configured as "untagged" at the switch. If it's untagged the VLAN id is stripped from the network traffic before it reached the ESX host and you don't need to set any VLAN in the ESX host.

Using ESX it's normally only a matter of time before the number of VLAN's increase and you might as well prepare for it in your ESX design (saving you changes later). Read the whitepapers mentioned, they are a great help and will save time when troubleshooting.