Static IP's - Host & Client

[johns10t]

Sorry if this is the wrong community for this, but I'm working with my first installation of vSphere and am somewhat new to virtualizing servers.

I've got my server running ESXi 4.1, just created my first VM on it, and have started creating the network configuration. My main question right now is - should I be setting up static IP's for everything I possibly can? For example, I have 4 NICs on the server that I've assigned the following way: 2 for Management and iSCSI, and 2 for the VM Network. Should that yield 4 static IP's + a static for each VM?

Thanks for your assistance!

[arturka · Accepted solution]

Hi

You are not assigning IP to NIC but to vmkernel portgroup such as iSCSI, vMotion, service console, FT

For mgmt - static

for iSCSI - static

for VM's - you will set up IP on VM guesOS not on ESX level

Cheers
Artur

Please, don't forget the awarding points for "helpful" and/or "correct" answers.

[vmroyale]

Hello.

I prefer to use static IPs for everything. For the management and iSCSI, definitely use static addresses. The VM Network doesn't get an IP address, since it doesnt' use the VMkernel, but for the guest VMs that are going to be SERVERS I would use static IP addresses.

Good Luck!

[johns10t]

That makes sense. Since you don't need to communicate with the VM Network directly for any reason, giving it a static is kind of a waste of time. It'll still need an IP to talk to the network, but it doesn't matter if it's dynamic. Am I right?

[vmroyale]

For ESXi hosts, I would use static. Depending on the setup you have there are lots of different things that can go wrong, if that host IP changes. Update Manager requires static IPs for updates to hosts as well.

Technically speaking, you can use dynamic. It will work, but be prepared for issues.

[kruddy]

All of your VMs communicate over the VM Network and all the IPs are assigned on a VM based level.

You, VC, and other VMware solutions communicate to the host over the Management Network (VMkernel port)

I too would highly recommend static IPs for all of the VMkernel ports (iSCSI, NFS, vMotion, and Management networks).