Force uplinks not to tag with VLAN

[beovax]

I have a very strange config due to the servers being colocated. I have 2 uplinks from my server(s) one uplink is connected to a switch under my control. the first uplink is connected to my stwichand the port is set with vlan tagging. The second uplink is connected to my ISP's network to an untagged port.

I want the NIC conencted to my switch to be active and the the nic connected to the ISP to be standby. The problem is I have to tag the traffic from my virtual machines so when it fails over to my ISP network the untagged port drops all the traffic. The port conencted to my ISP is for failover only.

one solution is to create a second port group on a dedicated vswitch which has no vlan tagging and manually connect all the VM's to this portgroup in the event of a failure.

Ideally I would like to make this automatic, is there any way of automating the above solution? or force all traffic going through a specific vmnic to untagg the traffic?

[Rubeck]

Maybe setting a default VLAN on your upstream switchport would avoid tagging anything.....

Only thing that comes into my mind at the moment...

/Rubeck

[jpdicicco]

It seems to me that Rubeck is correct. A port group either tags or not, but not both. So, the suggestion to use your native VLAN for the VM traffic on your network is the best available. That is assuming, however, that you want the VMs to communicate via the ISP interface when you fail to it. If that isn't the case, then you just want to set that interface to Unused on the NIC Teaming tab in the properties for the portgroup your VMs are in.

Happy virtualizing!

JP

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[beovax]

thank you for your replies, yes this would work, but I have a limited number or ports and in normal operation I need to pass multiple vlans over the same uplinks. This requires tagged ports on my switch :smileysad: I will have to just fail it over manually I think

[Rubeck]

You need to set the ISP connected NIC as an Unused NIC in the Nic Teaming vSwitch properties. Then override the vSwitch failover for your management console portgroup...

/Rubeck

[beovax]

this is what I have done. The ISP NIC is set to unused for all port groups. But I have created one called failover which uses the ISP nic as active. In the event that my switch fails. I will login and manaualy attach the VM;s to the failover portgroup

[jpdicicco]

So, I'm attaching a diagram of what I understand to be your networking environment. Please verify whether it is accurate or not. If it is, then you have an interesting situation that I think could be solved with e1000 guest NICs; failover teaming; and perhaps multiple, weighted default routes. All in the guest.

The changes would have to happen in the guest, if the network it will be accessing from your ISP (0.0.z.0/24) is a different subnet from the subnetworks on your switch.

Happy virtualizing!

JP

Please consider awarding points for correct and/or helpful answers.

[beovax]

thank you for the assistance, I appreciate your enthusiasm :smileyhappy: problem is the failover must be transaprent to the guests. I am using my switch to monitor bandwidth of the guest VM's since netflow was removed from ESX4, if i setup the clients in this way they can bypass the monitoring :smileyhappy: