How do I assign Ethernet ports (NIC) to each VM created? (VMware ESXi 6.5 Web UI)

[randomuser1999]

Hello:

I am a novice when it comes to VMware and this is my first time creating a Virtual Machine(s). Currently, I am stuck, trying to assign individual internet connections to each individual VM.

My setup is a host PC with four (4) VMs created and I installed a PCI-E network card with four (4) individual Ethernet ports. I am using both the VMware ESXi web user interface (accessed by my unique STATIC ID) and the VMware VSphere Client (which will not allow me to edit settings; for 5.5 and older) to create/edit/access the VMs.

Can someone please give me the dumbed-down (dummy version) of how to go about doing this? Maybe even provide screenshots? I have been troubleshooting for three (3) days now and everything I find is for older versions of the ESXi, unclear explanations, or I'm just missing something.

Any and all help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

ESXi Novice

[jhague]

You need to create a virtual switch first of all - there is probably already one there - host-manage-networking. After that you need to create a port group for your virtual machines to connect to. The port group will be assigned one or more of your physical network ports - e.g. VM Network. Once you have a port group you can edit your virtual machine and a virtual NIC or modify one if already there by selecting the port group it should be connected to. You need to decide which physical NIC(s) you want to use for Virtual Machine traffic - normally you'd use say 2 for ESXi management traffic (2 for redundancy) and 2 for VM traffic also consider whether you are using VLANs.

This might help - chapter 2.

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.0/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-602-networking-guide.pdf