Need help with the networking setup

[Cooldude09]

Hi All,

I am confused about the small setup for networking

The Scenarios is I have VLAN 1 and VLAN 2 configured on the same switch. VLAN 1 is on ports say 1-10 and VLAN 2 is on Ports 11-20. Now ESX server is connected to VLAN 1 port 1.

Both VLAN's are allowed to talk to each other. On the guest OS residing on the ESX server, will it accept the IP from the subnet of VLAN2 though ESX is not connected to VLAN 2 physcially.

I know connecting the ESX server physcially to VLAN 2 will make it happen, but can this be a possiblily, wont the switch be smart enough to talk internally to both VLAN's.Btw the switch is a dell power connect 5448 switch.

Anil Gupta

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[dnetz]

Hi,

First of all, traffic in a switch does not flow from one VLAN to another without having some kind of routing function in the network. Secondly, to be able to use more than one VLAN for your virtual machines, you need to configure the switch to send the VLANs tagged on the port where your ESX host sits as opposed to untagged. This means that you can send both VLAN 1 and 2 to the ESX host and with a properly configured vSwitch, the guest machines can use both VLANs.

Tagged switch ports means that the packets are tagged with the VLAN id so that the ESX host can tell them apart, you can send more than one tagged VLAN to a port. Untagged ports means that only one specific VLAN is sent on the port and the recieving end (your ESX host) cannot tell which VLAN id this is, you can therefor only send one untagged VLAN to a specific port.

I suggest reading http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/virtual_networking_concepts.pdf for a good overview of how ESX handles networks.

Hope it helps!

[Cooldude09]

So you suggest me not to connect ESX server to ports 11-20 as well...just i need is the configuration on the switch for tagging?

Anil Gupta

Don’t fear changes, its constant in life, reduce your ecological footprint……………………..Go Green

if you found my answer to be useful, feel free to mark it as Helpful or Correct.

Looking for a Virtualization Solution, look here.....

[dnetz]

Yes, if you have more than one network port on your ESX host you might want to put the VLANs for the guest machines on its own port, if not you could tag the existing port with the desired VLANs. From a security point of view it's considered best practice to seperate the service console/vmkernel/vmotion/storage traffic and the guest VM VLANs. Just remember to configure the ESX host accordingly, you need one virtual machine port group per VLAN and you have to enter the VLAN id for these port groups as well.

[Cooldude09]

Thanks for the reply, but to notify i dont have any VLAN implementation on ESX server. So i need to now enter VLAN id's if i do that i hope my networking is not lost. This is a production server. I am not too good with networking....

Anil Gupta

Don’t fear changes, its constant in life, reduce your ecological footprint……………………..Go Green

if you found my answer to be useful, feel free to mark it as Helpful or Correct.

Looking for a Virtualization Solution, look here.....

[dnetz · Accepted solution]

I've attached a picture to show how my lab ESX machine is configured. vSwitch0 contains the service console and vmkernel on the first network port on the host. vSwitch1 contains two VLANs with ID 206 and 208 on the second network port. The name I've given them (Labb and Server) is what identifies these VLANs when you set up guest vm networking later. If you're unsure about ESX networks then it might be best to try this outside of office hours or on a separate machine. If you change the physical or virtual switch configurations you might interrupt the virtual machines (especially if using a iSCSI or NFS for datastores) so be careful.

[Cooldude09]

Let me do some reasearch on this. will update you tomorrow.

Anil Gupta

Don’t fear changes, its constant in life, reduce your ecological footprint……………………..Go Green

if you found my answer to be useful, feel free to mark it as Helpful or Correct.

Looking for a Virtualization Solution, look here.....

[Cooldude09]

i tried the steps above......but no luck.....

Anil Gupta

Don’t fear changes, its constant in life, reduce your ecological footprint……………………..Go Green

if you found my answer to be useful, feel free to mark it as Helpful or Correct.

Looking for a Virtualization Solution, look here.....

[dnetz]

Then my only guess is that the ports in your physical switch that goes into the virtual switch you've configured for VLAN's aren't actually configured to send the VLAN's tagged. If your virtual switch is configured in a similar manner to my picture and your virtual machines have a network card belonging to these port groups you've created, then this should be working. It's hard to tell where the problem is without looking at your exact configuration, but the PDF file I linked to before is helpful in understanding the concepts of networking in ESX.

[Cooldude09]

Yess the trunking port is not been enabled...thats the reason i guess its not working...i will get it fixed and will update..

Anil Gupta

Don’t fear changes, its constant in life, reduce your ecological footprint……………………..Go Green

if you found my answer to be useful, feel free to mark it as Helpful or Correct.

Looking for a Virtualization Solution, look here.....

[Cooldude09]

Anyone has any documnet for steps to be used to enable trunking port on dell power connect 5448 switch....

Anil Gupta

Don’t fear changes, its constant in life, reduce your ecological footprint……………………..Go Green

if you found my answer to be useful, feel free to mark it as Helpful or Correct.

Looking for a Virtualization Solution, look here.....