j2luce
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Question on ESXi VLAN Networking
We have a Dell M1000e enclosure housing several M710 blades, that we are in the process of setting up vSphere ESXi 4.1 upon.
We have created Etherchannel trunks that go from our core switch (Cisco 4500) to the blade switch (Cisco 3130G), and can ping the maintenance ports and the VMotion ports (VLAN IDs 50 and 60 respectfully). However we can not reach a test server we have bulit on the first ESXi host, which had an IP address on the 192.168.0.0/23 subnet (VLAN ID 1) like the rest of the network..
It is our understanding that the VLAN ID 1 is dropped if it is our Native VLAN ID, which is what we originally had tried to use for the VM Network so It was moved to VLAN 10 and we find now can ping it from the blade switch, so that looks to be the first step in establishing communications. However how would we go about not causing ourselves a lot of pain attempting to bring the rest of existing network onboard with this change? Are we missing something very basic here that we are overlooking?
Thanks in advance!
We have created Etherchannel trunks that go from our core switch (Cisco 4500) to the blade switch (Cisco 3130G), and can ping the maintenance ports and the VMotion ports (VLAN IDs 50 and 60 respectfully). However we can not reach a test server we have bulit on the first ESXi host, which had an IP address on the 192.168.0.0/23 subnet (VLAN ID 1) like the rest of the network..
It is our understanding that the VLAN ID 1 is dropped if it is our Native VLAN ID, which is what we originally had tried to use for the VM Network so It was moved to VLAN 10 and we find now can ping it from the blade switch, so that looks to be the first step in establishing communications. However how would we go about not causing ourselves a lot of pain attempting to bring the rest of existing network onboard with this change? Are we missing something very basic here that we are overlooking?
Thanks in advance!
ASKER
So in order to solve this. WHat I initially thought was correct. We will need to reset the core switches to NOT use the default VLAN, but whatever VLAN we would select to run the ESXi on?.
the management network interfaces should be on the same VLAN as the vCenter server and maybe any other systems that will monitor the hosts. Some shops just have a "server" VLAN that management traffic is on and that is fine in most situations, too..
I am doing a similar setup so it should be possible. Im not familiar with the M1000e.
Have you tried using DHCP in the interface on the VM? Do this till everything works.
The vlan tagging is dropped on the native VLAN. It is recommended that you do not use the native vlan for regular traffic. There is extra communication between switches on the native VLAN. of course VLAN 1 is native by default. You can change the native to any other VLAN you chose and leave your current VLAN 1 and IP scheme alone, or you can create a new VLAN for client/server traffic(I prefer to separate these) and change the VLAN 1 IP settings to the new VLAN and change your switch ports to the new VLAN. Or you can just leave it how it is, which is the exact same way I do it.
The first step is to make sure that the ESXi host is getting the VLAN 1 network. How did you do this? An access port on VLAN 1? A trunk that allows VLAN 1?
Next, look in ESXi and make sure that it is taking VLAN 1. I haven't trunked to a ESXi box, but could help you with it if thats what you did. If it's an access port, just make sure it shows in the networking tab of the host, set as DHCP for testing. Also rename the network from the default name.
Then make sure that you are setting the network card to the correct VM Network. You can find this in the VM settings under the first tab IIRC.
Let me know if this helped.
Frank
Have you tried using DHCP in the interface on the VM? Do this till everything works.
The vlan tagging is dropped on the native VLAN. It is recommended that you do not use the native vlan for regular traffic. There is extra communication between switches on the native VLAN. of course VLAN 1 is native by default. You can change the native to any other VLAN you chose and leave your current VLAN 1 and IP scheme alone, or you can create a new VLAN for client/server traffic(I prefer to separate these) and change the VLAN 1 IP settings to the new VLAN and change your switch ports to the new VLAN. Or you can just leave it how it is, which is the exact same way I do it.
The first step is to make sure that the ESXi host is getting the VLAN 1 network. How did you do this? An access port on VLAN 1? A trunk that allows VLAN 1?
Next, look in ESXi and make sure that it is taking VLAN 1. I haven't trunked to a ESXi box, but could help you with it if thats what you did. If it's an access port, just make sure it shows in the networking tab of the host, set as DHCP for testing. Also rename the network from the default name.
Then make sure that you are setting the network card to the correct VM Network. You can find this in the VM settings under the first tab IIRC.
Let me know if this helped.
Frank
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Configuring Network Switches for VLAN Tagging (http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1266)
Sample VLAN configs http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1004074