Esxi - Vswitch config help needed

[pooley]

Ok

 

Have installed ESXI on my HP Server, given it static management ip

 

Using VI Client I have installed 2 server OS (both server 2008)

 

All is good, I have assigned both Servers a static IP. Servers can both ping each other and the ESXI Host without any problems.

 

But I cannot get them to ping/see my physical network.

Both respond with Destination host unreachable (after ping)

 

On my ESXI host server in the "Test Management Network" it can ping the physical network.

 

So I need to configure a/my Vswitch but am not getting very far.

 

After that ramble I am hoping someone can help

 

I have attached a pic of my setup.

 

I have tried some configurations but with no joy, dont realy want to kill it lol

 

Cheers

 

Si

[Butuz]

TBH that looks to be set up exactly the same as my test server.

 

Is your managment network IP address on the same IP range / subnet as the rest of your network?

 

Butuz

[pooley]

Yes it is, the only thing the "Test physical Network" failed on was pinging the DNS name, but I have left that at defaults, assumed it wouldn't make a difference.

[Butuz]

I've got my DNS set to static and the two DNS entries are the two DNS servers on my network.

 

Butuz

[Jay]

Check you have the networking in bridged mode so that ESX acts as a gateway for the two server networking cards.

 

PS: Assuming the vSwitch is similar to VMWare server, not used ESX yet.

[mikemcsw]

Check you have the networking in bridged mode so that ESX acts as a gateway for the two server networking cards.

 

PS: Assuming the vSwitch is similar to VMWare server, not used ESX yet.

 

How do you put your networking in bridged mode?

[oxide54]

you don't thats with hosted virtulazation such as GSX/Server/Player/Workstation

 

not ESX(i)

[andrew-virtusolve]

Do you have a layer-3 network that you are connecting this to? I notice you have vLAN IDs set on your vSwitch, this is not always an obvious a configuration setting as you think it would be. I would suggest removing the vSwitch and creating a new one WITHOUT the vLAN ID tag set.

 

Also, you should check your Physical NIC is set to active and not standby, click Properties next to the vSwitch, under the Ports tab highlight the vSwitch and click edit, the last tab on that screen is called NIC teaming and should look like this:

 

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n45/andybaxta/Shared/sadasdas.png

 

You can move the adapters up and down into the various sections on the right

 

If you are still having trouble, drop me an IM

[kemal]

Hi,

 

I have similar issue with ESXi 5.

 

Environment Structure

 

 

Router (192.168.6.1)

-Linux

--VM Work Station 8

-- ESXi5 (192.168.6.220)

---srv01 ((Win2008r2) (192.168.6.221)(static ip)

---srv02 (WIn2008r2) (192.168.6.111)(DHCP)

 

srv01 can ping srv02

srv01 can ping ESXi5

srv01 cannot ping

 

srv02 can get ip from DCHP server (192.168.6.1)

srv02 can ping srv01

srv02 can ping ESXi5

srv02 cannot ping Router

 

Router cannot ping srv01, srv02

Router can ping ESXi5

 

Question:

What should I do:

to get srv01 ping Router

to get router to ping srv01?

[andrew-virtusolve]

Hi,

 

Router cannot ping srv01, srv02

Router can ping ESXi5

 

Question:

What should I do:

to get srv01 ping Router

to get router to ping srv01?

 

Just to be clear, you are running a linux distro, VMware Workstation 8, then in a virtual machine running ESXi and then in that hypervisor running two VM's - correct?

 

Is the network card that you have granted to your ESXi server (in the VMware Workstation console) set to Bridged (and NOT Host Only, NAT or Custom)?

I am assuming you are using the default vSwitch configuration in ESXi (vSwitch0) and that you only have a single physical uplink, is that correct?

Did you upgrade from version 7 to version 8 on workstation? We have heard from one customer who did and had problems with bridge mode not working, they fixed that by deleting the virtual NIC and recreating in version 8 (after upgrading the virtual machine version from 7 to 8

[kemal]

Just to be clear, you are running a linux distro, VMware Workstation 8, then in a virtual machine running ESXi and then in that hypervisor running two VM's - correct?

 

Yes, just like how you described above.

 

Is the network card that you have granted to your ESXi server (in the VMware Workstation console) set to Bridged (and NOT Host Only, NAT or Custom)?

 

Set to bridged

 

I am assuming you are using the default vSwitch configuration in ESXi (vSwitch0) and that you only have a single physical uplink, is that correct?

 

Correct, single uplink

 

Did you upgrade from version 7 to version 8 on workstation? We have heard from one customer who did and had problems with bridge mode not working, they fixed that by deleting the virtual NIC and recreating in version 8 (after upgrading the virtual machine version from 7 to 8

 

No, I installed workstation 8 from the beginning. The VMs in the ESXi were uploaded from workstation 8. Firewall is turned off on guest VMs.

Although srv03 cannot ping router (192.168.6.1) but it get assigned ip from dhcp (192.168.6.1). it indicates the network card communicate with a physical router.

[andrew-virtusolve]

No, I installed workstation 8 from the beginning. The VMs in the ESXi were uploaded from workstation 8. Firewall is turned off on guest VMs.

Although srv03 cannot ping router (192.168.6.1) but it get assigned ip from dhcp (192.168.6.1). it indicates the network card communicate with a physical router.

 

Yep, it sounds like something somewhere is blocking the ICMP requests - obvious thing would be the 2008R2 client firewall within the VM but as you have said that is disabled, but is there any other communication happening - so can the server browse the internet through the router? Do both clients have a gateway set and both have the correct subnet masks? Do you have VMware Tools installed in both of the guests within ESXi?

 

Additionally within the vSwitch config in ESXi, check the properties of vSwitch0, select the Security tab and change Promiscuous Mode from Reject to Accept - this will allow better compatibility at a network level running on multiple hypervisor layers:

[kemal]

Yep, it sounds like something somewhere is blocking the ICMP requests - obvious thing would be the 2008R2 client firewall within the VM but as you have said that is disabled, but is there any other communication happening - so can the server browse the internet through the router?

 

Do both clients have a gateway set and both have the correct subnet masks? Do you have VMware Tools installed in both of the guests within ESXi?

 

Additionally within the vSwitch config in ESXi, check the properties of vSwitch0, select the Security tab and change Promiscuous Mode from Reject to Accept - this will allow better compatibility at a network level running on multiple hypervisor layers:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]11949[/ATTACH]

 

ESXi server can access internet and ping gateway or workstation8. None of VMs can ping gateway.

 

Both VMs have the same sub mask 255.255.255.0

VM tools are installed on both guest VMs.

I did try turn the promiscuous mode to accept.

 

The connection issue remains.

 

Would vSwitch has ip?

 

Some more information

 

Entire Network Structure

 

From ESXi Test Management Network, it can ping all the guest VMs in the ESXi. This cross off the concerns of firewall on guest VMs.

What are other possibilities?

Edited November 4, 2011 by kemal

[andrew-virtusolve]

The fact that SRV01 is not in the ESXi config clears things up a bit, you do have an unnecessary port group and VM Network (2) on your ESXi host, but that is not causing the issue if SRV01 cannot ping the router.

 

If you run a TRACERT from SRV01 to the gateway address what is the output?

[kemal]

Trancert from SRV01 to Gateway

 

Sorry it was little bit differnet from I first discription. While I was doing troubleshooting, I move SRV01 outside the ESXi. As you can see there are SRV02 and SRV03 in the ESXi.

 

SRV01 can ping Gateway.

SRV02 cannot ping Gateway.

SRV03 cannot ping Gateway.

SRV02 and SRV03 can ping each other.

SRV01 cannot ping SRV02 nor SRV03.

 

C:\Users\Administrator>tracert 192.168.6.1

 

Tracing route to 192.168.6.1 over a maximum of 30 hops

 

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.6.1

 

Trace complete.

 

It shows once I move the VM out from ESXi, then the network bridge is working.

Question is what cuase the communication between VMs in ESXi and Gateway?

[andrew-virtusolve]

Everything is setup correctly in ESXi, I would suggest there is something in your Workstation 8 config that isn't quite right - does the Network Card on your ESXi VM in workstation 8 definately have the 'Bridged' setting applied (and not NAT), also have you tried checking the 'Replicate Physical Network Connection State' setting?

 

Finally does your workstation 8 application have full inbound and outbound access through your Physical host machines firewall?