Connecting virtual network adapters to physical network adapters

[Severino2]

Hello experts,

I have some experience with VMware Workstation and Player, but I'm a newbie regarging ESXi.

Now, I have a problem regarding networking in ESXi 6.5.

I succeeded in setting up a server (Dell PowerEdge R530) with ESXi 6.5.

I then created a VM with 3 virtual NICs and installed CentOS 7 64 bit.

This server is a stand alone machine and there are no plans to use vCenter, so I'm using the web client for configuration etc.

The server has 4 physical network adapters, and I would like to assign each of the virtual NICs to a physical network adapter:

(vmnic0 - management)

vmnic1 - Network adapter 1

vmnic2 - Network adapter 2

vmnic3 - Network adapter 3

I understood that I must use a virtual switch:

VM - Port group - vSphere standard switch - physical nic

If I assign a port group to a vSphere standard switch, the port group contains ALL 3 virtual NICs of the VM.

I don't understand how a simple 1:1 mapping is done.

Any hints would be very much appreciated.

Thanks

Severino

[a_p_]

Welcome to the Community,

it's basically as easy as creating multiple vSwitches, each with a port group, and a vmnic. Connect the vmnics (uplinks) to the appropriate physical switch ports, and configure the virtual machine's settings to have each of its virtual network adapters connected to another port group.

That said, this design will lack redundancy. If your physical infrastructure supports VLANs, you may create a single vSwitch with 3 VM port groups, and multiple vmnics connected to tagged (802.1Q) ports on the physical side. You will then set the appropriate VLAN-ID on each of the port groups, and - if needed/wanted - configure the port groups' failover policies as required.

André

[Severino2]

Dear André

Thanks a lot for your answer. In fact this is what I did intuitively. It just didn't work. I got it working after I allowed:

MAC Address Changes

and

Forged Transmissions

I don't know whether both are needed, I'll try disabling first one and then the other. For the moment I'm just happy that it works and I can focus on further tasks.

Thanks,

Severino