VMware

DATA CENTER VIRTUALIZATION - CORE TECHNICAL

SKILLS

Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

Document Version: 2021-10-15

Copyright © 2021 Network Development Group, Inc.

www.netdevgroup.com

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................ 3
Objectives.................................................................................................................................................... 3
Lab Topology............................................................................................................................................... 4
Lab Settings ................................................................................................................................................. 5
1 View Standard Switch Configuration and Properties ......................................................................... 6
2 View Distributed Switch Configuration and Properties.................................................................... 11
3 Perform Virtual Machine Connectivity Check................................................................................... 16
4 Identify VLAN Mismatch ................................................................................................................... 25

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

Introduction

In this lab, you will become familiar with vSphere Standard and vSphere Distributed Switches.

Objectives

 View a Standard Switch Configuration

 View a Distributed Switch Configuration
 Perform Virtual Machine Network Connectivity Check
 Identify VLAN Mismatch on a Virtual Switch

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

Lab Topology

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

Lab Settings

The information in the table below will be needed to complete the lab. The task sections below
provide details on the use of this information.

Virtual Machine IP Address Account Password

sa-esxi-01 eth0: 172.20.10.51 root Train1ng$

sa-esxi-02 eth0: 172.20.10.52 root Train1ng$

sa-aio eth0: 172.20.10.10 sysadmin vmware123

sa-student eth0: 172.20.10.80 sysadmin vmware123

sa-vcsa eth0: 172.20.10.94 [email protected] vmware123

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

1 View Standard Switch Configuration and Properties

In this task, you will view and identify standard switch properties.

1. Launch the sa-student virtual machine to access the graphical login screen.

To launch the console window for a virtual machine, you may access by
either clicking on the machine’s graphic image from the topology page
or by clicking on the machine’s respective tab from the navigation bar.

2. Log in as sysadmin using the password vmware123.

3. Launch the Mozilla Firefox web browser by clicking on the icon shortcut found on the bottom
toolbar.

4. Notice the homepage is automatically configured to load the URL address of the VMware vCenter
Server Appliance (sa-vcsa virtual machine). Click on the LAUNCH VSPHERE CLIENT (HTML5) button
to launch the vSphere Client.

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

If you cannot successfully load the VMware Getting Started webpage,

then please wait an additional 3-5 minutes and refresh the page to
continue. During this time, the vCenter Server Appliance is still
booting up and requires extra time to initialize.

5. In the Username text field, type [email protected] and in the Password text field, type
vmware123. Click on Login.

You may ignore the “browser-OS combination” warning message

presented on the VMware vCenter Single Sign-On page and continue
moving forward with the lab.

6. In the navigation pane, click on the Hosts and Clusters tab. Expand the Datacenter object and
select sa-esxi-01.vlcass.local.

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

7. In the sa-esxi-01.vclass.local main workspace, click on the Configure tab. Navigate to Networking >
Virtual Switches.

8. In the Virtual Switches pane, collapse Distributed Switch: dvs-lab and expand Standard Switch:
vSwitch0. You will notice two port groups, Management Network and VM Network. Attached to
the port groups is the physical adapter vmnic0.

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

A vSphere Standard Switch is utilized to connect virtual machines and

hosts traffic with a VMkernal Adapter. A standard switch is like a
physical switch and will only work with one ESXi host. Port groups are
unique to an ESXi host and are used as a network identifier for virtual
machines to communicate. The physical adapter is the uplink that
allows the communication to other ESXi hosts and the virtual
machines that reside on it.

9. On the Standard Switch: vSwitch0, click on the ellipsis icon.

10. On the standard switch menu, click View Settings.

11. In the vSwitch0 settings window, click the Properties tab. Notice the switch properties.

The switch properties tab will show you the standard switch name and
the MTU Size. MTU is the maximum transmission unit and is the
maximum size of the data unit that can be transferred in a standard
switch.

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

12. In the vSwitch0 settings window, click the Policies tab. Notice the switch policies. Click the X to
close the vSwitch0 settings.

The switch policies allow you to secure standard switch traffic by

changing Promiscuous mode, Mac address changes, and Forged
transmits. Traffic shaping allows you to limit standard switch traffic.
Teaming and Failover all you to increase the network capacity and
balance the load of a standard switch or port group.

13. Leave the vSphere Client open and continue to the next task.

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

2 View Distributed Switch Configuration and Properties

In this task, you will create a new virtual machine called vm2-2.

1. In the navigation pane, select the Networking tab. Expand Datacenter, dvs-lab, and select dvs-lab.

2. In the dvs-lab main workspace, ensure you are viewing the Summary tab. On the Summary tab,
notice the Manufacturer and Version of the distributed switch. Expand the Switch Details pane. In
the Switch Details pane, you can see the networks, hosts, virtual machines, and ports attached to
the dvs-lab Distributed switch.

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

3. In the dvs-lab main workspace navigate to the Features pane and expand it. Notice the features
available to the dvs-lab distributed switch.

The Features pane will show you all the networking options available to
the vSphere Distributed switch.

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

4. In the dvs-lab main workspace, select the Configure tab. Navigate to Settings > Properties.

The Properties pane of a vSphere Distributed switch will show you the
general information about the distributed switch, MTU Size, what
discovery protocol it is using and administrator information if needed.
This property menu is an excellent resource to gather the number of
uplinks, and ports associated with a distributed switch.

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

5. On the Configure tab, navigate to Settings > Topology. On the Prod-pg port group, expand Virtual
Machines. Expand dvs-lab-DVUplinks-8441 group and Uplink 1 (2 NIC Adapters). View the
information in the topology. Take note of the VMs and ESXi host attached to the distributed
switch.

The port group will show you the VLAN id set for networking traffic
and the virtual machines that are attached to the port group. The
uplinks group will show the uplink associated with each ESXi host
attached so the connectivity can occur with other objects in the
vSphere environment.

6. In the dvs-lab main workspace, click on the Hosts tab. Compare the Hosts from this view to the
topology view in step 5.

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

7. In the dvs-lab main workspace, click on the VMs tab. Compare the VMs from this view to the
topology view in step 5.

8. Leave the vSphere Client open and continue to the next task.

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

3 Perform Virtual Machine Connectivity Check

In this task, you will confirm connectivity between Linux-01 and Linux-02 using a virtual switch.

1. In the navigation pane, select the VMs and Templates tab. Right-click Linux-01 and select Power >
Power On.

2. Right-click Linux-02 and select Power > Power On.

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

3. Select Linux-02 and in the main workspace, ensure you are on the Summary tab. Allow the Linux-
02 1 to 2 minutes to properly boot. Notice the IP Address of 172.20.11.22. Click Launch Web
Console.

4. On the Linux-02 login screen, log in as sysadmin with a password of vmware123. Click Log In.

5. Locate the quick access taskbar in the lower-center of Linux-02. Click to open a Terminal Emulator
window.

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

6. In the Terminal window, type the command below and press Enter. 172.20.11.21 is the IP
Address of Linux-01. Let the ping utility run and continue to the next step.

Linux-02:~$ ping 172.20.11.21

7. Change focus back to the vSphere Client by clicking on the vSphere Firefox tab.

8. Select Linux-01 and in the main workspace, ensure you are on the Summary tab. Notice the IP
Address of 172.20.11.21. Click Launch Web Console.

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

9. On the Linux-01 login screen, log in as sysadmin with a password of vmware123. Click Log In.

10. Locate the quick access taskbar in the lower-center of Linux-01. Click to open a Terminal Emulator
window.

11. In the Terminal window, type the command below and press Enter. 172.20.11.21 is the IP
Address of Linux-01. Let the ping utility run and continue to the next step.

Linux-01:~$ ping 172.20.11.22

12. Notice the pings are successful on the Linux-01 and Linux-02 virtual machines.

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

Linux-01 and Linux-02 can communicate because they are attached to

the same network configured on separate ESXi hosts. The name of the
network in this lab is VM Network.

13. Change focus back to the vSphere Client by clicking on the vSphere Firefox tab.

14. In the navigation pane, click the VMs and Templates tab. Right-click Linux-01 and select Edit
Settings.

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

15. In the Edit Settings window, locate the Network adapter 1. From the dropdown menu, select
Browse….

16. In the Select Network window, select Prod-pg. Click OK.

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

17. In the Edit Settings window, verify prod-pg is showing as the network. Click OK.

18. Change focus back to Linux-02 by clicking on the Linux-02 firefox tab.

19. If the screen has timed out, click anywhere in the Linux-02 screen. Log back in as sysadmin with a
password of vmware123. Click Unlock.

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

20. Close the terminal window by clicking X.

21. In the Warning window, click Close Window.

22. Locate the quick access taskbar in the lower center of Linux-02. Click to open a Terminal Emulator
window.

23. In the Terminal window, type the command below and press Enter. 172.20.11.21 is the IP address
of Linux-01. Let the ping utility run and continue to the next step.

Linux-02:~$ ping 172.20.11.21

Virtual machines cannot communicate if they are on different

networks. In this task, you disrupted the communication by changing
Linux-01 from the VM network to the prod-pg network. Therefore,
vSphere notices Linux-01 and Linux-02 are on different networks.

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

24. Repeat steps 14 – 17 and put Linux-01 back on the VM Network. Do not continue to the next task
until this step is complete. Remember, you can view the VM Hardware pane in the Linux-01 main
workspace to verify it is back on the VM Network.

25. Leave the vSphere client open and continue to the next task.

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

4 Identify VLAN Mismatch

In this task, you will be shown how to identify and fix a VLAN mismatch on an ESXi host.

1. Ensure you are on the Hosts and Clusters tab. Select sa-esxi-01.vclass.local. In the sa-esxi-
01.vclass.local main workspace, click the Configure tab. Navigate to Networking > Virtual Switches.

2. In the Virtual Switches main workspace, minimize Distributed Switch: dvs-lab. Expand Standard
Switch: vSwitch0, in the VM Network port group, click the ellipses icon. Click Edit Settings.

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

3. In the VM Network – Edit Settings window, change the VLAN ID by typing 10. Click OK.

VLAN configurations in vSphere allow a single ESXi host to create its

own LAN via a port group. Having VLANs associated to a port group can
isolate traffic as if they were on their own physical network.

For this lab, you will assign a VLAN to verify that you cannot connect
between host and port groups not associated with the same port
group.

4. Change focus back to Linux-02 by clicking on the Linux-02 firefox tab.

5. If the screen has timed out, click anywhere in the Linux-02 screen. Log back in as sysadmin with a
password of vmware123. Click Unlock.

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

6. Close the terminal window by clicking X.

7. In the Warning window, click Close Window.

8. Locate the quick access taskbar in the lower-center of Linux-02. Click to open a Terminal Emulator
window.

9. In the Terminal window, type the command below and press Enter. 172.20.11.21 is the IP address
of Linux-01. Let the ping utility run and continue to the next step.

Linux-02:~$ ping 172.20.11.21

10. Notice you cannot ping Linux-01 at the IP address of 172.20.11.21. This is because you assigned a
different VLAN tag to the VM Network port group on sa-esxi-01.vclass.local.

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

11. Change focus back to the vSphere Client by clicking on the vSphere Firefox tab.

12. In the Virtual Switches main workspace of sa-esxi-01.vclass.local, on Standard Switch: vSwitch0, in
the VM Network port group, click the ellipses icon. Click Edit Settings.

13. In the VM Network – Edit Settings window, change the VLAN ID to None(0). Click OK.

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Lab 05: Understanding Virtual Switches

14. Change focus back to Linux-02 by clicking the Linux-02 firefox tab. Notice that you can now ping
Linux-01 again.

Creating a VLAN mismatch can cause connectivity issues between

objects in vSphere. When connecting virtual machines between hosts
using VLAN tagging, ensure that your VLANs match on each port group
that the virtual machines will need to communicate on.

15. The lab is now complete; you may end your reservation.

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