new to vmware, vsphere and networking vswitch

Hi all

I am new to virtualization, but decided to try it since my company is going full on ESXI5.5.  That is why I hope that some kind gurus here can point me in the right direction regarding some doubts I have... and do not forgive me if I ask ridiculous questions...

==========

So far, I know that VMs, through their vNIC connect to vSwitch which is in turn connected to the physical machine or the host ESXI (vmnic) network card. The vmnic is then connected to a real L2/L3 switch.

[VM Vnic] <>- [vswitch] <>- [vmnic] <>- [physical switch]

However, what I don't understand is how the vmnic actually works to spread the traffic "inward" to the vswitch? I can't really come up with one question to explain my doubt, but below are the doubts that I asked myself->

  • How is he able to assign the IP off the internal virtual machines?
  • When an outer package of the physical switch is being sent to the vmnic how he spend in-house for internal virtual computers?
  • How even knows designated IP belong to a virtual machine inside and "inward" to happen to the vswitch?
  • Is the vmnic using address IP or MAC to decide if it means putting the package inside the switch?
  • When an arp request for a virtual machine IP is send from the outside, the vmnic will reply with its mac address?
  • When an arp request is sent from an internal virtual machine, the vmnic keep track of the mac address of the virtual machine so that next time, when he saw a response to this MAC, he knows inside 'before' the vSwitch
  • What is this work something like a 'bridge' mode fill the vswitch internal to the external physical switch? Is there a table of addresses belonging to the vmnic mac?
  • Whenever the IP of the virtual computer is assigned, the IP address will be "bind" to the vmnic?
  • How register us all IP or Mac addresses (if any) that are associated with a vmnic?

Or rather simply, I wonder how the physical network adapter on the host (esxi), knows that he must transfer a frame "inward" to the vswitch? is there a link OF the virtual machine to the interface? or nic was a table of addresses mac or something... (but the mac address table guess belong to vswitch?)

Thank you.

Kind regards

Noob

Hello

Welcome to the community!

I would like to start with a doc. I recommend you to read our VMware Virtual Networking Concepts guide that I hope will help you to better understand the basic details of the virtual in VMware switch, even if it's a bit old.

On your last question, however:

> Or rather simply put, I wonder how the physical network adapter on the host (esxi), knows that he must transfer a frame "inward" to the vswitch? is there an IP link from the virtual machine to the interface? or nic was a table of addresses mac or something... (but the mac address table supposed to belong to vswitch?)

The vminc (i.e. the physical card) on the ESXi host is not that there is a virtual switch behind it. It transfers the packets to the driver and then the top layer software it management. There is no magic to this topic. In some cases, there are a few added techniques (for example netqueue), but the basis remains the same. Vmnic (i.e. the physical NETWORK adapter card) does not keep the information of MAC address of the virtual machine on virtual machines, but does the vSwitch. But even the vSwitch does not retain details of the IP address.

A virtual switch, as such, doesn't have the same kind of as a physical switch mac address table. If a virtual machine under tension then the vSwitch stores the virtual port <->combination MAC address number and keeps it like that (so far it's really no different a physical switch). A big difference is that, well that the vSwitch does not learn the MAC addresses of the external network. If there is a picture of outside with the MAC address of unicast for which there is no port isn't linked then the packet gets dropped. And if the virtual machine sends traffic to another MAC that does not exist in the virtual switch and then it will be sent out via the uplink (s) (if it exists).

The MAC address of the vmnic does not play here (unless one of the vmkernel interface pulls his MAC to an adapter of uplink).

I hope this helps. Let me know if you still have any questions.

Roland

Tags: VMware

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