Connect two ESXi Machines via Crossover Cable

[chris32lr]

Hello everyone,

I have two ESXi hosts, one production and one which is a replication destination. I have a crossover cable connecting both machines and am trying to use this connection for Veeam Backup and Replication. Here's how I have it setup so far:

First machine:

vSwitch0

ESXi1 - 10.0.0.7 <--- management network

vSwitch1

VM - 10.0.0.4

VM2 - 10.0.0.2 <-- Veeam B&R resides here

vSwitch2

VMKernel Port: 192.168.2.1 <-- crossover cable

Second machine:

vSwitch0

Backup ESXi - 10.0.0.5 <--- Management network

vSwitch1

VMKernel Port: 192.168.2.2 <-- crossover cable

I'm using vCenter and if I try to add the VMKernel port to vSwitch1 on the first machine, it completely disconnects internet connection to the VMs. In its current configuration, I'm unable to ping the second machine and therefore cannot direct backup and replication traffic over this crossover cable. I'm obviously doing something wrong, but have been unable to configure it properly.

Thanks everyone!

[weinstein5]

did you set a gateway address for the 192.168.2.x network? If you did do not set - there can only be one gateway address for vmkernel ports per ESXi host.

[chris32lr]

Thanks for the fast response! I did, I set it up like this:

ESXi1

192.168.2.2

Subnet mask 255.255.255.0

Gateway: 192.168.2.1

Backup:

192.168.2.1

Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0

Gateway: 192.168.2.2

[weinstein5]

remove the gatway addresses for the 192.168.2.x addresses it is not needed since they site on the same segment -

[chris32lr]

Done, however I still cannot ping the other ESXi box. See the attached screenshot. Ignore the red x's on the NICs (no cable is attached there), I'm working on the VMKernel ports.

[weinstein5]

What IP address are you pinging? Where you issuing the ping command from? If you are trying to ping the 192.168.2.x addresses you will only be able to ping those from the console of the ESXi host -

[chris32lr]

There's where I messed up then, I was trying to ping from one of the VMs. Need more coffee! In that case, it works. Now I'm trying to understand how I can get Veeam to use that crossover cable for backup traffic because it's using the LAN management network. Any ideas? So far Veeam hasn't been able to help me there.

[vFantastic]

Veeam, if run as a VM, can access the SCSI stack directly if your only backing up shared storage. What you would need to offload is the destination. you could use those ports on a separate VLAN or even a separate physical switch to a server with DAS, or an iSCSI backup device. Not too sure what you are trying to accomplish here.

[chris32lr]

I apologize for being vague. I'm trying to run replication through the crossover cable, without going through a physical switch (LAN) but it seems like it's something that may not be possible at this point.

[vFantastic]

A VMportgroup on each vswitch1(the one with the newVMKernal PG), then add it to the VeeamVM give it an IP of 192.168.2.3 no gateway. then see if u can ping 192.168.2.1 and 2.2 from Veeam.

Makesure the vmkernal ports are marked for management.

Message was edited by: Kris Knight srry found alot of errs on the orig post

[chris32lr]

So are you saying to assign a vmnic, separate from the one the crossover cable is attached, to vSwitch1 (see "Production" screenshot above), create another virtual machine port group in vSwitch1, assign the new vmnic to the VM with Veeam on it, with an IP of 192.168.2.3? I've tried adding the vmkernel port that's already created to vSwitch1, but it breaks connection to all the VMs.

[vFantastic]

You want to add a VirtualMachine PortGroup to vSwitch2 you've added with the crossover cable on it. Call it VMRepNetwork. Then Add a second NetworkAdapter to the Veeam VM and put that PortGroup on it and assign the Veeam VM 192.168.2.3. See if you can ping 192.168.2.1 from Veeam

Prod
vSwitch2
VMKernel with 192.168.2.2
***VMRepNetwork assign NetworkAdapter2 on Veeam 192.168.2.3 no gateway

Backup

vSwitch1

VMKernel with 192.168.2.1