How to enable DHCP for a vmnic?

[rwatsh]

Hi,

The vmnic (physical NICs) have DHCP and IP/Subnet mask properties in the MOB. But how do we set these? I could not figure out a CLI or a way to do so from vSphere client.

Regards,

Watsh

[Troy_Clavell]

there should be no configuration necessary to the NICs.  All you need to do is to ensure your guest has a network adapter that is connected a a VM port group that is DHCP

[Roggy]

I think you are confusing a vmnic with a vmknic.

vmknics have ip addresses and stuff vmnics dont.

[Mauro Bonder]

vmnic = A real phyiscal interface on an ESX host

vmknic = virtual network interface that is used by the VMKernel

vswif = The virtual ethernet interface that is used by the service console

[rwatsh]

I know vmknics have IP address and that they can be configured with static or DHCP allocated ones.

But in the MOB and vSphere SDK API, there is a DHCP, IP address and subnet mask properties associated to a physical NIC too and its always unset. So I needed to know how those properties can be changed (for API see: http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vc-sdk/visdk41pubs/ApiReference/vim.host.PhysicalNic.Specification.html and for MOB lookup the path: Property Path: config.network.pnic["key-vim.host.PhysicalNic-vmnic1"].spec.ip).

[rwatsh]

I found the solution. We need to use the ifconfig command to set the vmnic's IP address as shown below:

ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.102 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255

Assign eth0 with the above values for IP, netmask and broadcast address.

To enable dhcp on a given vmnic:

dhclient eth0

Renews the IP address.