ESX 3.5 Virtual Switches From the CLI (esxcfg-vswitch) – VCDX Prep

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Moving along with our series of esxcfg & VCDX related series of posts, we come to esxcfg-vswitch. The example we’ll work with here has us setting up a new virtual switch, adding an uplink NIC, adding a port group with VLAN 393, and changing the MTU. Ready? Here we go:

  1. Add the vSwitch:
    [root@ProfessionalVMware root]# esxcfg-vswitch –add NewSwitch
    [root@ProfessionalVMware root]# esxcfg-vswitch -l
    Switch Name    Num Ports   Used Ports  Configured Ports  MTU     Uplinks  
    vSwitch0       64          5           64                1500    vmnic0   

    2.   PortGroup Name      VLAN ID  Used Ports  Uplinks  
      VM Network          0        0           vmnic0   
      Service Console     0        1           vmnic0   
      VMkernel            0        1           vmnic0   

    Switch Name    Num Ports   Used Ports  Configured Ports  MTU     Uplinks  
    NewSwitch      64          1           64                1500             

      PortGroup Name      VLAN ID  Used Ports  Uplinks  

  2. Add the uplink:
    [root@ProfessionalVMware root]# esxcfg-vswitch –link vmnic1 NewSwitch
    [root@ProfessionalVMware root]# esxcfg-vswitch -l
    Switch Name    Num Ports   Used Ports  Configured Ports  MTU     Uplinks  
    vSwitch0       64          5           64                1500    vmnic0   

    3.   PortGroup Name      VLAN ID  Used Ports  Uplinks  
      VM Network          0        0           vmnic0   
      Service Console     0        1           vmnic0   
      VMkernel            0        1           vmnic0   

    Switch Name    Num Ports   Used Ports  Configured Ports  MTU     Uplinks  
    NewSwitch      64          3           64                1500    vmnic1   

      PortGroup Name      VLAN ID  Used Ports  Uplinks  

  3. Now to add the port group & VLAN 393
    [root@ProfessionalVMware root]# esxcfg-vswitch –add-pg=NewPg NewSwitch
    [root@ProfessionalVMware root]# esxcfg-vswitch –vlan=393 -p NewPg NewSwitch
    [root@ProfessionalVMware root]# esxcfg-vswitch -l
    Switch Name    Num Ports   Used Ports  Configured Ports  MTU     Uplinks  
    vSwitch0       64          5           64                1500    vmnic0   

    4.   PortGroup Name      VLAN ID  Used Ports  Uplinks  
      VM Network          0        0           vmnic0   
      Service Console     0        1           vmnic0   
      VMkernel            0        1           vmnic0   

    Switch Name    Num Ports   Used Ports  Configured Ports  MTU     Uplinks  
    NewSwitch      64          3           64                1500    vmnic1   

      PortGroup Name      VLAN ID  Used Ports  Uplinks  
      NewPg               393      0           vmnic1   

  4. Now the MTU:

    5. [root@ProfessionalVMware root]# esxcfg-vswitch -m 123 NewSwitch
    [root@ProfessionalVMware root]# esxcfg-vswitch -l
    Switch Name    Num Ports   Used Ports  Configured Ports  MTU     Uplinks  
    vSwitch0       64          5           64                1500    vmnic0   

      PortGroup Name      VLAN ID  Used Ports  Uplinks  
      VM Network          0        0           vmnic0   
      Service Console     0        1           vmnic0   
      VMkernel            0        1           vmnic0   

    Switch Name    Num Ports   Used Ports  Configured Ports  MTU     Uplinks  
    NewSwitch      64          3           64                123     vmnic1   

      PortGroup Name      VLAN ID  Used Ports  Uplinks  
      NewPg               393      0           vmnic1   

In summary, the commands we used:

  • esxcfg-vswitch –l
  • esxcfg-vswitch –add
  • esxcfg-vswitch –link
  • esxcfg-vswitch –add-pg
  • esxcfg-vswitch –vlan
  • esxcfg-vswitch –m

Questions? Comments? Drop a line in the comments.