How do I configure a second physical NIC on ESXi 4

I am new to ESX and especially esxi. I have two servers running esxi4...It has two physical adapters....one is used for the management console and is connected to our production network. I wanted to use the second NIC, in order for the hosts to talk to one another. This is what I have done....I configured a virtual switch on each server to use vmnic01. I have an 8 port netgear switch, where I have connected NIC from each server to....the switch is just going to be used to allow machines from one host to talk to machines from the other host. I wanted to configure the IP on the second adapter without making it the management NIC. From what I remembered ESX used the ifconfig cmd, but it is not a part of esxi...Any help would be gratley appreciated....