ESXi Virtual Networking Question

[daKrisht]

Hey everyone,

I've installed Astaro Security Gateway as a VM under ESXi 3.5 Update 3. The install went successfully and I have configured the Astaro to use two VNic's (eth0 & eth1). I have configured eth0 on the Astaro to use 192.168.2.100

My question is: How would I be able to access the WebAdmin of this Gateway (192.168.2.100:4444) from a remote machine (i.e. my Laptop running VI Client)?

Here are some more in-depth config details:

ESXi IP = 192.168.0.187 (provided by our physical DHCP switch/server)

Under Configuration -> Networking, I see the following (see attached photo)

Help is always greatly appreciated!

Thanks!!!

[apatel1]

Hi daKrisht, you would need to ensure that the physical NIC (vmnic1 on the ESXi host is connected to the proper segment. What is your subnet mask? If you are using a 22-bit subnet mask (255.255.252.0), then there should be no problems accessing the VM from over the network, assuming your laptop is either on the same segment, or there is routing between the laptop's segment and the VM's segment.

If you're using a 24-bit subnet mask (255.255.255.0), and based on the fact that there don't seem to be any VLANs configured on this vSwitch, you would not be able to access your Astaro VM from the network. In that case, you could configure the connection between vmnic1 and your physical switch as a VLAN trunk, configure a VM port group with the appropriate VLAN ID, and then make sure your VM is connected to that particular port group.

Hope that helps! Please help me out by marking my response as "helpful" or "correct" if you feel that it was useful!

-Amit

[daKrisht]

Thanks for your reply, Amit.

I'm new to ESXi so please excuse my ignorance.

So you are saying configure the Astaro VM (during installation) to use a 22-bit subnet mask (i.e. 255.255.252.0) and assign it a normal IP address (such as 192.168.2.100) and then configure vmnic1 in ESXi?

Looking at my screenshot and current setup, it appears that vmnic1 is not setup - how can I set up vmnic1 so that I can talk to the Astaro?

Thanks for all the help!

(Also, taking the screenshot into consideration, vmnic0 is configured as the ESXi host, as far as I understand things)

[weinstein5 · Accepted solution]

You are correct vmnic1 is not in use - To use the second physical nic (vmnic1) you will need to either create a second virtual sritch by right clicking on the add networking link or adding the vmnic1 to vswitch0 to create a NIC Team -

[apatel1]

My mistake. My mind must've been elsewhere when I typed that response. Just replace everywhere I typed "vmnic1" with "vmnic0" and it should all make sense. No need to do anything with vmnic1 IF your subnet mask is 22 bits. You'd determine this by looking at another system on the same network segment to see what its subnet mask is set to.

Please help me out by awarding points for a "helpful" or "correct" response if you feel that it was useful!

-Amit

[daKrisht]

I was able to successfully access the Astaro by entering 192.168.2.20 (just a random IP in my Windows IP settings), 192.168.2.100 (as the gateway (which is the IP configured during installation for the astaro)) and keep the same subnet mask as our LAN (255.255.255.0).

Am I correct in thinking that we can install as many VMs as we want running under the vmnic0 but just change the ".0" to ".2" in the IP settings for the individual vm's (i.e. 192.168.0.xxx is our internal network but 192.168.2.xxx could be 100s of VMs on ESXi, theoretically?)

Thanks for the help everyone!