From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "Ryan King" References: <000001cad5e4$fcc81030$f6583090$@com> In-Reply-To: Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2010 11:21:07 +0800 Message-ID: <000101cad601$5d42a300$17c7e900$@com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Language: en-au Subject: Re: [Bridge] Bridging vSwitches in VMwares ESXi List-Id: Linux Ethernet Bridging List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: 'Robert LeBlanc' , Ryan Whelan Cc: bridge@lists.linux-foundation.org > -----Original Message----- > From: bridge-bounces@lists.linux-foundation.org [mailto:bridge- > bounces@lists.linux-foundation.org] On Behalf Of Robert LeBlanc > Sent: Wednesday, 7 April 2010 11:02 AM > To: Ryan Whelan > Cc: bridge@lists.linux-foundation.org > Subject: Re: [Bridge] Bridging vSwitches in VMwares ESXi >=20 > On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 8:41 PM, Ryan Whelan = > wrote: > > oh good- glad to find out im not crazy. we do have 2 pNICs in the > external > > facing vSwitch.=A0 Even when setting them as active/passive, its = still > an > > issue. > > > > so its a confirmed issue with vmware- do they have any intention on > > correcting it? do we know? > > >=20 > Yes as long as the pNIC is attached, even if in standby mode it causes > a problem. >=20 > It is an issue, but they won't fix it for two reasons. 1. They will > never create a bridge between two vSwitches/VLANs, and 2. a fix would > introduce more overhead and reduce flexibility and since they adhere > to #1, it doesn't make sense. The flexibility they lose is multiple > pNICs to one or more switches without having to have any trunking > protocols. >=20 > You can get around the problem by buying the Cisco Nexus virtual > switch, it's a real layer 3 switch, but it's a pricy option. >=20 > If you want a bridge in a VM, then only pNIC per switch (no > redundancy). The other option, try to make the bridge a router > instead. For us we wanted a transparent firewall, so it was easy to > change the configuration to proxyarp for a transparent router instead. >=20 Just to clarify our setup: The physical server has 4 physical nics. vswitch1 uses 2 pnics in active/active. vswitch2 uses 2 pnics in active/active. The VM (running openvpn) has a bridge with one vnic on vswitch1 and one = vnic on vswitch2. Since moving the 2nd interface to vswitch2, I have not experienced this issue any more (ie: previously, both vnics were on = vswitch1 - this was where we saw this issue). Ryan King