Management network with different IP than host?

[gfricke]

I want to isolate my management network traffic from my VM traffic.  My host is on the same VLAN as the majority of my VMs.  Can I change the management network kernel IP to be different than my host?  Or am I stuck changing my hosts' IP/VLAN to something else...

[admin]

Hi,

Sorry if i did not get the question right, your question is a little confusing the reason being, The VM traffic never uses a VMkernel port. it uses the VM Network port group, assuming that you have both VM Network port group and Management network port group on the same vSwitch you can have them on two different switch with different Nics its simple .

But if your looking to separately add static routes to additional gateways/routers, Then the below KB should be helpful

VMware KB: Configuring static routes for vmkernel ports on an ESXi host

Hope this helps,

Thanks,

Avinash

[marcelo_soares]

An ESX server does not have an IP. You have vmkernel interfaces, on which you can enable management traffic or not. The IP you see on vCenter/vSphere Client is the first assigned vmkernel for management, but it is not mandatory that your management interfaces keep this address or not.

As Avinash21 said, VMs and management interfaces does not depend on each other.

For simplicity, you CAN change the IP address, no problem at all. If you have vCenter, you may have problems and need to reconnect to the new IP. If you have DNS, you may need to reconfigure the DNS entry for this host.

[gfricke]

So I have 2 vlans with vmlans on a teamed pair of nics, the 100 and 110 network.  Then my management network is also on the 100.  All are on the same vSwitch with teamed physical nics. 

To split traffic out from the vm network, I need to change the management network IP to one on the 200 vlan.  When I change that in network configuration, am I going to lose the relationship with vcenter and have to remove/readd it?  If so, is there a cleaner way to make this change?

[marcelo_soares]

Yes,you will lose connection to vcenter. Ideally, remove the host from vCenter, change IP, and readd it back (vcenter will need access to this 200 vlan also).