Chapter 3 Basic Networking with vNetwork Standard Switches

Add Uplink Adapters

You can associate multiple adapters to a single vSwitch to provide NIC teaming. The team can share traffic and provide failover.

Procedure

1 Log in to the vSphere Client and select the host from the inventory panel. 2 Click the Configuration tab and click Networking.

3 Select a vSwitch and click Properties.

4Click the Network Adapters tab.

5Click Add to launch the Add Adapter wizard.

6Select one or more adapters from the list and click Next.

7(Optional) To reorder the NICs into a different category, select a NIC and click Move Up and Move Down.

Option	Description
Active Adapters	Adapters that the vSwitch uses.
Standby Adapters	Adapters that become active if one or more of the active adapters fails.

8Click Next.

9Review the information on the Adapter Summary page, click Back to change any entries, and click

Finish.

The list of network adapters reappears, showing the adapters that the vSwitch now claims.

10Click Close to exit the vSwitch Properties dialog box.

The Networking section in the Configuration tab shows the network adapters in their designated order and categories.

Cisco Discovery Protocol

Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) allows ESX administrators to determine which Cisco switch port is connected to a given vSwitch. When CDP is enabled for a particular vSwitch, you can view properties of the Cisco switch (such as device ID, software version, and timeout) from the vSphere Client.

Enable CDP on an ESX Host

vSwitches are set to detect Cisco port information by default. You can also set the CDP mode so that a vSwitch makes information available to the Cisco switch administrator.

Procedure

1Log in directly to your ESX host's console.

2View the current CDP mode for the a vSwitch by entering the esxcfg-vswitch -b <vSwitch> command. If CDP is disabled, the mode will be shown as down.

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ESX Configuration Guide

3Change the CDP mode by entering the esxcfg-vswitch -B <mode> <vSwitch> command.

Mode	Description
down	CDP is disabled.
listen	ESX detects and displays information about the associated Cisco switch port,
	but information about the vSwitch is not available to the Cisco switch
	administrator.
advertise	ESX makes information about the vSwitch available to the Cisco switch
	administrator, but does not detect and display information about the Cisco
	switch.
both	ESX detects and displays information about the associated Cisco switch and
	makes information about the vSwitch available to the Cisco switch
	administrator.

View Cisco Switch Information on the vSphere Client

When CDP is set to listen or both, you can view Cisco switch information.

Procedure

1 Log in to the vSphere Client and select the host from the inventory panel.

2Click the Configuration tab and click Networking.

3Click the info icon to the right of the vSwitch.

NOTE Because the CDP advertisements of Cisco equipment typically occur once a minute, a noticeable delay might occur between enabling CDP on ESX and the availability of CDP data from the vSphere client.

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Basic Networking with vNetwork	4
Distributed Switches

These topics guide you through the basic concepts of networking with vNetwork Distributed Switches and how to set up and configure networking with vNetwork Distributed Switches in a vSphere environment.

This chapter includes the following topics:

n“vNetwork Distributed Switch Architecture,” on page 30

n“Configuring a vNetwork Distributed Switch,” on page 30

n“dvPort Groups,” on page 34

n“dvPorts,” on page 35

n“Private VLANs,” on page 36

n“Configuring vNetwork Distributed Switch Network Adapters,” on page 38

n“Configuring Virtual Machine Networking on a vNetwork Distributed Switch,” on page 42

n“Network I/O Control,” on page 43

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