Creating a second VMkernel port

[Doders69]

Hi All,

Just after a bit of advice. Our current setup uses a VMkernel port on ip 10.63.5.100 to access our iSCSI san, that host our VM's. What I would like to do is add another VMkernel port say 5.102 and seperate some of our VM traffic. However when I ago to add another port into ESX it says that you cannot have 2 VMkernel ports on the same subnet.

Any ideas how I can get around this ??

Cheers

Paull

[weinstein5]

Welcome to the forums - no there is no way to get around this it is a limitation of the virtual switch - and with what you want to do really would not balance the load - all the traffic would still go the physical NICs so there is no need for a second vmkernel port it would be better if you could add a second physical NIC to your vSwitch

[Doders69]

Ok thanks for the info... Is there any other way if achieving this then. Maybe a second vswitch on a different ip range ?? eg 10.63.4.100 with a 248.0 mask ( it needs to talk to a san on 5.11 ) ??

[weinstein5]

I updated my original response - check it out -

If you found this or another response helpful please award it by marking it helpful or correct

[Doders69]

I do already have 2 Phys nics in this switch group. What we have going over it, is our TSM backup traffic. I really just wanted to seperate that traffic from the rest of the VM's. ie add the storage of the TSM server ( which is a VM ), over a different set of Physical nics...

[mike_laspina]

You can have multiple VMkernels on one vswitch I have configured it and it works fine.

They must not reside on the same subnet.

just do this

VMkernal1 = 10.10.0.1 mask=255.255.0.0

VMkernal2 = 10.11.0.1 mask=255.255.0.0

you can even vlan them if you like.

TSM? Are you running it on the host. That would not go over the kernel it would run on the COS virtual machine which is the Console network. Ahh never mind (which is a VM......got it)

[Doders69]

Hi Mike,

So in my situation I have vSwitch1 with SC 5.101 and my Kernel Port at 5.100, are you suggesting that I can add another Kernel under the same vSwitch as say 4.100 and a 255.255.0.0 mask, and this should work ?

Cheers

[mike_laspina]

No. It must be in a different subnet.

e.g.

net mask 255.255.255.0

[Doders69]

Having thought about it a bit more, I dont think adding a second Kernel under the same Console port is going to satisfy my need. I want to seperate the traffic onto different nics, so I would need to add another Service Console and Kernel port, and add the new Nics to that. Would that still work with a 5.106 and 255.255.0.0 ( being a different mask than is already setup 5.104 and 255.0 on the 1st SC )..

[mike_laspina]

You cannot have two VMkernel network ports on the same subnet regardless of which vswitch the are on. You can have an isolated network say 192.168.0.0 as long as the other ESX servers are connected to the layer 2 vlan/physical network it will work.

The Service Console is not relevant. It does not connect to the VMkernel it is a virtual machine on the host that allows you to manage it. A second console can sit on the same subnet.

Service Console 1 = 10.10.1.1/16

Service Console 2 = 10.10.1.2/16

VMkernel1 = VMotion = 192.168.0.0/24

VMkernel2 = iSCSI-1= 192.168.1.0/24

VMkernel3 = iSCSI-2= 192.168.2.0/24

These can exist all on one vswitch or all on separate vswitches just not in the same subnet.