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SK21090
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how the packet flow will work from VM in one Host to VM in other Host

Hey Guys

Could you please help me to understand how the packet flow will work from VM in one Host to VM in other Host

I wanted to understand more about what will happen when virtual switch will see the traffic and pass it to physical switch

I understand packet will follow as below

Example :VM1 > vSwtich > ESX1NIC > PSwtich > ESX2NIC > vSwtich > VM2

Both VM are in same Subnets and a single physical switch is connected to both ESXi's

VM1 packet will contain

VM1 Source MAC

VM1 Source IP

VM2 Destination MAC

VM2 Source IP

The process of packet flow ( as per my understanding, please correct if wrong):

1. As the vswtich does not find entry in its MAC cache, it forwards the traffic to pSwtich via ESX1NIC

2. pSwtich will have MAC entry of the destination VM2 which will be mapped to the port of the ESX2NIC

3. pswtich will forward the traffic to vSwtich of ESX2 and vSwtich will lookup its MAC Cache and forward the packet to destination VM2

Questions :

1. will Physical Switch have MAC entry of multiple VM's residing on vSwtich mapped to a single physical port?

Thank-you in advance

Packet Flow from VM in one Host to VM in other Host

Message was edited by: SK21090

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rcporto
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1. will Physical Switch have MAC entry of multiple VM's residing on vSwtich mapped to a single physical port?

Yes, on physical switch MAC address table you will see a lot of entries pointing to the physical switch interface where do you have your ESXi host connected. Where each MAC entry can be a MAC address of a virtual machine or ESXi VMkernel interface.

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Richardson Porto
Senior Infrastructure Specialist
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/richardsonporto

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rcporto
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1. will Physical Switch have MAC entry of multiple VM's residing on vSwtich mapped to a single physical port?

Yes, on physical switch MAC address table you will see a lot of entries pointing to the physical switch interface where do you have your ESXi host connected. Where each MAC entry can be a MAC address of a virtual machine or ESXi VMkernel interface.

---

Richardson Porto
Senior Infrastructure Specialist
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/richardsonporto
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guow
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Hi, I have a question need your help.

If I want VM1 ping VM2, need I config IP address on ESX1 NIC and ESX2 NIC?

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