I installed the Vyatta Core 6.3 virtual appliance in VMWare ESXi 4.1 U1 on a Dell Precision 490. I want Vyatta to serve as the gateway for my entire home network, with a red interface having a public IP address, other virtual machines behind the DMZ, and my private machines (laptops, TiVo, etc.) behind the green interface.
Here's my VMWare network topology:
vSwitch0 ("Green vSwitch"): NIC 0, connected to switch/wireless hub with patch cable
vSwitch1 ("Demilitarized vSwitch"): no physical NIC
vSwitch2 ("Red vSwitch"): NIC 1, connected to Comcast cable modem with patch cable
Here's my Vyatta VM network config:
eth0: connected to vSwitch2 ("Red Switch")
eth1: connected to vSwitch0 ("Green Switch")
eth2: connected to vSwitch1 ("Demilitarized Switch")
Here's my Vyatta config:
ethernet eth0 {
address dhcp
description "Red Interface"
duplex auto
hw-id 00:50:56:3F:FF:01
smp_affinity auto
speed auto
}
ethernet eth1 {
address 172.16.122.1/24
description "Green Interface"
duplex auto
hw-id 00:50:56:3F:FF:02
smp_affinity auto
speed auto
}
ethernet eth2 {
address 192.168.122.254/24
description "DMZ Interface"
duplex auto
hw-id 00:50:56:3F:FF:03
smp_affinity auto
speed auto
}
My green interface is fine. All the machines connected to the Dell Precision's NIC 0 get IP addresses assigned to them via DHCP, which I have set up for that subnet/interface.
My DMZ interface is fine. I can assign static IP addresses to other virtual machines, assign their interfaces to vSwitch1 ("Demilitarized vSwitch"), and they can communicate with each other.
Per my firewall/zone rules, the machines on the green interface can communicate with the machines on the DMZ just fine, and the DMZ machines can't establish connections to green zone machines, which is correct.
HERE'S MY PROBLEM: eth0 cannot get an IP address from Comcast. I've tried changing all kinds of settings on the virtual ethernet adapter, the vSwitch, etc., to no avail. I've power cycled the cable modem, to no avail. When I connect my cable modem back to my old wireless router, the router gets an IP address right away. When I connect the cable modem back to NIC 1 on the Dell, Vyatta gets no IP address.
I'm sure I'm just doing something wrong, but I'm not sure what. I have another identical-except-physical Vyatta configuration at another location, but it doesn't appear to work virtually. I figure this has to work, otherwise why would Vyatta provide an easy-to-use ESXi appliance that's read-to-go?
I thought maybe the vSwitch in ESXi was getting in the way, and that I needed to connect the VM directly to the physical NIC, but you can't do that in ESXi, so that's obviously not it.
Any idea what's wrong?
