Issue with Cisco ISE VM on a "HP xw8400 Workstation" (physical port limitation ?)

[Dany54000]

Hello

I am contacting you for three questions regarding "HP xw8400 Workstation" upgrade and "Cisco ISE" VM connectivity.

So I have a "HP xw8400 Workstation" (Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU 5160@3.00 GHZ Processor and 32 Gb for RAM) where I have installed an VMware Esxi 6.0.0 hypervisor using the IP address 10.10.10.2/24.

=> I know that this workstation doesn't officially support ESXi, but the Esxi 6.0 is up and running and the "Intel Virtualization Technology" is "enabled" from the BIOS.

This "HP xw8400 workstation" has only one RJ45 port which is linked to the interface Fa0/2 of a "Cisco 2960 serie-S" switch. And this switch is linked to a Workstation with the following IP: 10.10.10.13/24 using the Npcap Loopback Adaptater.

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I have setup the "Esxi" as follow :

NIC VMkernel

Mngt VLAN : (vmk0) 10.10.10.2 in "defautTcpipStack" mode.

PORT-GROUP

Mngt VLAN : vlan 0 (vmk0)

VM NETWORK : vlan ID 2

DMZ : vlan ID 3

NAS : vlan ID 4

So I have one "NIC VMkernel" (vmk0) for the Mngt VLAN and 4 "PORT-GROUP".

The VLANs I created are only for VM traffic, I manually put the IP addresses on the VMs and I do not use any DHCP servers.

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The "CISCO switch" port is configured such as follow:

interface FastEthernet0/2

switchport trunk allowed vlan 1-4

switchport mode trunk

spanning-tree portfast

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From the workstation (10.10.10.13), I can display the "Esxi Management" interface using the https://10.10.10.2 address.

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I've installed a Cisco ISE ISO file on a VM

The Cisco "ISE VM" is configured as follow:

2 CPU

4 GB of RAM

100 GB of HD

Network's adaptator type: VMXNET3

I have two interfaces which are

- GigabitEthernet 0

- Local Loopback

===================================================

I am facing to three issues.

1. When configuring the "Cisco ISE" Gigabit 0 interface with either the 10.10.12.16/24 or 10.10.10.3/24 addresses it didn't provide me more PORT-GROUP option that: VM NETWORK, DMZ and NAS (no Mngt VLAN).

With the 10.10.12.16/24 IP address, I cannot ping the Esxi (10.10.10.2): network unreachable

With the 10.10.10.3/24 IP address, I cannot ping the Esxi (10.10.10.2): destination host unreachable

When "Testing the Management Network" by pinging the 10.10.10.13 ip address from Esxi: failed (I really don't understand why I can't ping this addresse)

My opinion is because I have only one RJ45 port for the Management VLAN (vmk0) and I configured only one "NIC VMkernel".

Question: is possible to add anothers (2 or 3) network adpators on the HP xw8400 Workstation ? By replacing the network card or finding an equipement ?

2. When configuring the ISE VM, I hadn't started the DNS VM and I setup the "DNS 1" and "DNS 2" addresses with a default DNS domain name "demo.com".

Result: the Cisco ISE VM doesn't appears into the DNS 1 "demo.com" zone.

I am asking to re-install the "ISE VM" with the DNS server up and running before. It could explain why I cannot ping the Esxi because it has no domain configured and it is in another VLAN (10.10.10.0).

3. I cannot upgrade the "HP xw8400" Esxi to the VMware 6.5 version because the CPU model does not allow me.

Question: I there a means to perform it anyway ? Overclocking or something else ?

In advance I thank youi very much for your attention and for your help.

Dany

[bluefirestorm · Accepted solution]

Question 1:

I think they are not reachable by ping because they are on different subnets since you configured it to be /24 mask.

You could add network adapters but I think that is not the problem at hand but just the way your vSwitch has been configured.

But if you insist on procuring additional network adapter make sure they are supported out-of-the-box by the ESXi 6.0 by checking the Compatibility Guide.

VMware Compatibility Guide - I/O Device Search  and selecting "Network" device type.

Question 2:

Not familiar with Cisco ISE VM but I suspect it has to do with the misconfigured subnets

Question 3:

The Xeon 5160 processor is only qualified up to ESXi 6.0

https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=cpu&details=1&cpu_series=18...

The Xeon 5160 processor is quite old and it doesn't have Extended Page Table (EPT) feature which makes VMs run faster in certain memory-intensive situations. EPT is also required for VMX Unrestricted Guest feature which essentially allows VMs to run nearly bare metal with minimal intervention from the hypervisor software. EPT is probably a required feature of ESXi 6.5.

https://ark.intel.com/products/27219/Intel-Xeon-Processor-5160-4M-Cache-3_00-GHz-1333-MHz-FSB

[Dany54000]

Hello Bluefirestorm

A big THANK YOU for your message

Issue has been fixed by:

1. Changing the VLAN ID of "VM NETWORK" to 0 instead of 2.

2. Removing the Subnet-Mask from the Esxi

3. Putting 255.0.0.0 has subnet-Mask instead of 255.255.255.0 on my Administration Workstation

4. Letting the 10.10.10.6/24 address on Cisco's ISE VM.

5. Accessing the ISE management interface by taping https://10.10.10.5/admin/login.jsp on my browser

Dany