6.5

Table Of Contents
Managing vSphere Networking 9
The vSphere CLI networking commands allow you to manage the vSphere network services.
You can connect virtual machines to the physical network and to each other and congure vSphere standard
switches. Limited conguration of vSphere distributed switches is also supported. You can also set up your
vSphere environment to work with external networks such as SNMP or NTP.
This chapter includes the following topics:
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“Introduction to vSphere Networking,” on page 131
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“Retrieving Basic Networking Information,” on page 134
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“Troubleshoot a Networking Setup,” on page 134
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“Seing Up vSphere Networking with vSphere Standard Switches,” on page 136
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“Seing Up vSphere Networking with vSphere Distributed Switch,” on page 148
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“Managing Standard Networking Services in the vSphere Environment,” on page 149
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“Seing the DNS Conguration,” on page 149
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“Manage an NTP Server,” on page 152
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“Manage the IP Gateway,” on page 152
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“Seing Up IPsec,” on page 153
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“Manage the ESXi Firewall,” on page 157
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“Monitor VXLAN,” on page 158
Introduction to vSphere Networking
At the core of vSphere Networking are virtual switches.
vSphere supports standard switches (VSS) and distributed switches (VDS). Each virtual switch has a preset
number of ports and one or more port groups.
Virtual switches allow your virtual machines to connect to each other and to connect to the outside world.
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When two or more virtual machines are connected to the same virtual switch, and those virtual
machines are also on the same port group or VLAN, network trac between them is routed locally.
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When virtual machines are connected to a virtual switch that is connected to an uplink adapter, each
virtual machine can access the external network through that uplink. The adapter can be an uplink
connected to a standard switch or a distributed uplink port connected to a distributed switch.
VMware, Inc.
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