ESXI 6.5 - order of adding network adapters

[Reprovo]

Hi. Not sure if this is the correct forum.

I have a question regarding the order we add network adapters in a VM and why it would affect the physical Uplink the adapter is using.

We have a zeroshell linux vm we are using with esxi 6.5 embedded on a machine with 4 NICs (one nic used for esxi mgmt).

If we add the the network adapters in the order of LAN, WAN1, WAN2 , the lan and wan2 adapters will use different physical uplinks than if we add them in the order of WAN2, WAN1 and LAN.

My question is why would the order matter if the adapter is  linked to a port group that is in turn linked with a vswitch > physical uplink.

[varadep]

Hi,

just giving my experience on this kind of issue in past, may not be very relevant for you as i am not aware of zeroshell or embedded ESXi.

i had seen this for very specific workloads which rely on NIC PCI address inside vm for mapping nics. there is specific order of PCI devices for ethernet cards assigned to each network adapter to VM.

this is the order i used in past, for example you have three nics in your VM, then their PCI address should be in order below.

160, 1184, 2208, 3232, 4256, 5280, 6304, 7328, 192, 1216, 224, 1248, 256, 1280

if its not you can edit the .vmx file to make sure they are in order and after updating VMX reload the config. Or i believe you can do this from UI

ethernet0.pciSlotNumber  = "160"

ethernet1.pciSlotNumber  = "1184"

ethernet2.pciSlotNumber  = "2208" and so on

this way the VM's will map to correct port group outside.

hope this helps.