Routing between 2 vswitches

[ukznmcl]

Hello,

In my home lab i have the following configuration:

vSwitch0               -     Physical Adapter connected to router (192.168.1.x)

vSwitch1               -     No physical adapters (10.0.0.x)

All my VM's sit on vSwitch1. I had to do it this way to get PXE boot working in my lab properly.

My problem is that i cannot connect to any of my machines on vswitch1 from my 192.168.1 network.

What is the easiest way to be able to achieve this? I know i could probably stick a windows server in there and do RRAS but that would be a waste of resources. Is there an easier way?

[AntonVZhbankov]

You have to have a VM with 2 virtual NICs connected to both vSwitches acting as a router.

[chriswahl]

You're limited to some sort of dual homed router, otherwise you're stuck with the vSphere client's console.

[Texiwill · Accepted solution]

Hello,

VMware's vSwitches are standalone entitites that do not allow for switch stacking. IN order to connect two vSwitches you need to use a lightweight VM that acts as a firewall/router. There are several from which you can choose such as Vyatta, Smoothwall, IPCop, etc.

Or use your RRAS idea.

The device, which ever it is, has 2 vNICs, each connected to one of the vSwitches in use. I.e.

vSwitch A=>Portgroup A=> [vNIC A -- VM -- vNIC B]<=Portgroup B<=vSwitch B

The VM becomes the router between the switches.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

Communities Moderator, VMware vExpert,

Author: VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security,VMware ESX and ESXi in the Enterprise 2nd Edition

Podcast: The Virtualization Security Podcast Resources: The Virtualization Bookshelf

[ukznmcl]

Thanks for the reply guys. I ended up using RRAS and a multi-homed VM, works a treat.