This is the third part of the vSphere ESXi Networking Guide. In the previous post, we’ve created three virtual switches and assigned uplink ports to them. In this post we will add port groups and VMKernel ports to the vSwitches. The examples in this article are based on the ESXi version 6.7.

The start state for this article is shown in Figure 1.

This post’s configuration examples will bring the state of the virtual network to the one displayed in Figure 2, as shown below.

VM Port Group Tasks

The article’s examples will follow the same pattern we’ve used in the previous post – first we will use the WebGUI configuration of ESXi host and vCenter. And then PowerCLI configuration will be demonstrated.

ESXi Host Based Configuration

The first task is the addition of the INFRA-SERVERS port group. It is mapped to VLAN 10, as shown in Figure 2. With web browser navigate to IP address or full domain name of ESXi host and login with ESXi local credentials.

Click on the Networking navigation menu, then on Port groups tab, and press the “Add port group” button.

As shown in Figure 3, enter the port group name, the VLAN ID and select the virtual switch. Let’s accept default security settings which are inheriting configuration done on the vSwitch level.

vCenter Based Configuration

We will use the vCenter Web GUI to add the second port group called CORP-SERVERS mapped to VLAN 20. Firstly click on Hosts and Cluster icon, then select the IP address of VM host. Click on the Configure tab, then select Virtual switches on the menu on the left and then click Add Networking button.

Select “Virtual Machine Port Group for a Standard Switch” as a connection type. Then choose the virtual standard switch. In the screenshot below, the default option of vSwitch0 is selected. Then specify “CORP-SERVERS” as the port group name and 20 as VLAN ID. Review the summary and press Finish.

PowerCLI Configuration

In this section, we will create a “LAB-SERVERS” port group as part of the vSwitch1. The port group is assigned a VLAN ID of 30, as shown in the target state diagram.

The first two cmdlets connect to vCenter and store the virtual switch object in a variable called $VariableSwitch01, which we will use in the next commands to specify the parent switch for the “LAB-SERVERS” port group. This is similar to the examples we used in the previous article.

 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Connect-VIServer 192.168.99.220
 Name                           Port  User
 ----                           ----  ----
 192.168.99.220                 443   LAB.LOCAL\Administrator
 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> $VariableSwitch01 = Get-VMhost -Name "192.168.99.202" | Get-VirtualSwitch -Name "vSwitch1"

New cmdlets we will be using in the example below are New-VirtualPortGroup and Get-VirtualPortGroup.

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> New-VirtualPortGroup -VirtualSwitch $VariableSwitch01 -Name "LAB-SERVERS" -VLanId 30
 Name                      Key                            VLanId PortBinding NumPorts
 ----                      ---                            ------ ----------- --------
 LAB-SERVERS               key-vim.host.PortGroup-LAB-… 30
 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-VirtualPortGroup -VirtualSwitch $VariableSwitch01
 Name                      Key                            VLanId PortBinding NumPorts
 ----                      ---                            ------ ----------- --------
 LAB-SERVERS               key-vim.host.PortGroup-LAB-… 30
 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-VirtualPortGroup -VirtualSwitch $VariableSwitch01 | Format-List
 Name              : LAB-SERVERS
 VirtualSwitchId   : key-vim.host.VirtualSwitch-vSwitch1
 VirtualSwitchUid  : /VIServer=lab.local\administrator@192.168.99.220:443/VMHost=HostSystem-host-29/VirtualSwitch=key-vim.host.VirtualSwitch-vSwitch1/
 VirtualSwitch     : vSwitch1
 Key               : key-vim.host.PortGroup-LAB-SERVERS
 Port              :
 VLanId            : 30
 VirtualSwitchName : vSwitch1
 VMHostId          : HostSystem-host-29
 VMHostUid         : /VIServer=lab.local\administrator@192.168.99.220:443/VMHost=HostSystem-host-29/
 Uid               : /VIServer=lab.local\administrator@192.168.99.220:443/VMHost=HostSystem-host-29/VirtualSwitch=key-vim.host.VirtualSwitch-vSwitch1/VirtualPortGroup=key-vim.host.PortGroup-LAB-SERVERS/
 ExtensionData     : VMware.Vim.HostPortGroup

To demonstrate how to delete a port group we will remove the default port group “VM Network” that was automatically created during ESXi host installation. Remove-VirtualPortGroup cmdlet is used to perform the operation.

The first line of the listing below is similar to the one we used in the example above but uses another variable name. It stores the virtual switch named “vSwitch0” on ESXi host 192.168.99.202 as a variable. The second line stores the port group named “VM Network” in another variable. Then we use Remove-VirtualPortGroup cmdlet to delete the port group.

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> $VariableSwitch00 = Get-VMhost -Name "192.168.99.202" | Get-VirtualSwitch -Name "vSwitch0"
 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> $VariablePortGroup = Get-VirtualPortGroup -VirtualSwitch $VariableSwitch00 -Name "VM Network"
 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Remove-VirtualPortGroup $VariablePortGroup
 Perform operation?
 Perform operation 'Remove virtual port group.' on 'LAB-SERVERS'.
 [Y] Yes  [A] Yes to All  [N] No  [L] No to All  [S] Suspend  [?] Help (default is "Y"): y

VMs Interface Configuration

Now we have the required infrastructure prepared for connecting VM’s virtual adapters to port groups. Let’s start with the ESXi Host-Based configuration.

ESXi Host Based Configuration

Log in into ESXi host, press on the Virtual Machines menu and then click on the checkbox next to the VM that will be configured.

Click on the Actions menu button and select the “Edit settings” option. Now we can move VM’s network adapter to the required port group.

The next section shows how to perform the same configuration using the vCenter WebGUI interface.

vCenter Based Configuration

Log in into vCenter and click on the ESXi hostname or IP address, then click on the VM tab. Right-click on the VM’s row and select Edit Settings. Click on the drop-down box next to the network adapter and select Browse. In the list of available networks select one of the port groups.

PowerCLI Configuration

To perform configuration using PowerCLI we first need to locate the correct VM using Get-VM cmdlet and then either saving it as variable or piping it to Get-NetworkAdapter cmdlet we will be able to get access to its network adapter. Then Set-NetworkAdapter can be used to connect the network adapter to the correct port group. We will locate port group via virtual switch, as demonstrated in the previous example.

Let’s first refer to the diagram explaining how commands components are related and then check the command listing. Figure 8 shows the variables and cmdlets used in this example. The cmdlet that performs the required configuration is Set-NetworkAdapter. As per the command reference, we need to specify two pieces of information to change the adapter’s port group:

• Adapter that we want to move
• Port group that will be hosting the adapter

The diagram shows how to get access to these objects by running commands from the bottom to the top. Note that there are two different ways of how $VariableSwitch01 can be defined – with and without pipe operator ‘|’.

Full listing of the commands is provided in the sample below:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Connect-VIServer 192.168.99.220
 Name                           Port  User
 ----                           ----  ----
 192.168.99.220                 443   LAB.LOCAL\Administrator
 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-VM -Location 192.168.99.202
 Name                 PowerState Num CPUs MemoryGB
 ----                 ---------- -------- --------
 VM-4                 PoweredOff 1        2.000
 VM-2                 PoweredOff 1        2.000
 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> $VariableVM2 = Get-VM -Location 192.168.99.202 -Name VM-2
 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> $VariableNetworkAdapter = Get-NetworkAdapter -VM $VariableVM2
 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> $VariableNetworkAdapter | Format-List
 MacAddress       : 00:50:56:91:e3:e5
 WakeOnLanEnabled : True
 NetworkName      : VM Network
 Type             : e1000
 ParentId         : VirtualMachine-vm-85
 Parent           : VM-2
 Uid              : /VIServer=lab.local\administrator@192.168.99.220:443/VirtualMachine=VirtualMachine-vm-85/NetworkAdapter=4000/
 ConnectionState  : NotConnected, GuestControl, StartConnected
 ExtensionData    : VMware.Vim.VirtualE1000
 Id               : VirtualMachine-vm-85/4000
 Name             : Network adapter 1
 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> $VariableSwitch01 = Get-VMhost -Name "192.168.99.202" | Get-VirtualSwitch -Name "vSwitch1"
 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> $VariablePortGroup = Get-VirtualPortGroup -VirtualSwitch $VariableSwitch01 -Name "LAB-SERVERS"
 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Set-NetworkAdapter -NetworkAdapter $VariableNetworkAdapter -Portgroup $VariablePortGroup
 Confirm
 Are you sure you want to perform this action?
 Performing the operation "Connect to portgroup" on target "Network adapter 1".
 [Y] Yes  [A] Yes to All  [N] No  [L] No to All  [S] Suspend  [?] Help (default is "Y"): y
 Name                 Type       NetworkName  MacAddress         WakeOnLan
                                                                   Enabled
 ----                 ----       -----------  ----------         ---------
 Network adapter 1    e1000      LAB-SERVERS  00:50:56:91:e3:e5       True

VMKernel Port Configuration

The next step in this article is the configuration of the VMKernel ports.  These ports are used to provide communication to the ESXi host itself. The first example is based on WebGUI of the ESXi host to create a VMKernel adapter for VMotion.

ESXi Host Based Configuration

Log in into the ESXi host and then click on the “Networking” option on the side menu, then select VMKernel NICs and press the “Add VMKernel NIC” button. On the pop-up menu fill-in the port group details, the vSwitch and the VLAN ID.

It is recommended to use the “New port group” option, as VMKernel requires a dedicated port group that cannot be shared with the VM ports. Placing a VMKernel port into the existing port group with VM ports attached will cause these ports to be moved out of the port group with a probability of causing downtime.

vMotion stack is available by default, so we will select it from the list of the TCP/IP stacks. Note that the TCP/IP stack cannot be changed after the VMKernel adapter is created.

The static IP address of 192.168.100.201/24 is specified. Note that there is no default gateway configuration available under the VMKernel NIC. To configure it change the settings of vMotion stack as shown in the next screenshot.

To perform this configuration, click on the TCP/IP stacks tab and then right-click on vMotion stack and select the “Edit settings” option in the context menu invoked by the right-click. Adjust the IPv4 gateway setting. Note that the option can be modified only if there is a VMKernel adapter associated with the port group.

Let’s now delete VMKernel NIC by right-clicking on it and selecting the “Remove” option, so we can perform the same procedure using the vCenter interface.

vCenter Based Configuration

Log in into vCenter and click on the ESXi hostname or IP address, then select the Configure tab. Chose the “VMKernel adapters” option in the host’s menu and then press the “Add Networking” button. This will launch the familiar “Add Networking” configuration wizard. This time select VMKernel Network Adapter, select vSwitch0 and fill in the port group settings. Note that there is an option to override the TCP/IP stack default gateway with “User static IPv4 settings”. This default gateway will not appear in the TCP/IP stack routing table.

PowerCLI Configuration

To create an iSCSI VMKernel adapter with PowerCLI we will use New-VMHostNetworkAdapter cmdlet. After logging into vCenter let’s save vSwitch 2 as a variable.

Then a VMKernel adapter in a new PortGroup named iSCSI within vSwitch 2 is created. The VMKernel port’s IP address is set to 192.168.101.201. Get-VMHostNetworkAdapter cmdlet shows the settings of a newly created VMKernel interface. Finally, we will move the port group to the correct VLAN.

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Connect-VIServer 192.168.99.220
 Name                           Port  User
 ----                           ----  ----
 192.168.99.220                 443   LAB.LOCAL\Administrator
 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> $VariableSwitch02 = Get-VMhost -Name "192.168.99.202" | Get-VirtualSwitch -Name "vSwitch2"
 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> New-VMHostNetworkAdapter -VirtualSwitch $VariableSwitch02 -PortGroup "iSCSI" -IP 192.168.101.201  -SubnetMask 255.255.255.0
 Name       Mac               DhcpEnabled IP              SubnetMask      DeviceName
 ----       ---               ----------- --              ----------      ----------
 vmk2       00:50:56:6e:69:2a False       192.168.101.201 255.255.255.0         vmk2
 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-VMHostNetworkAdapter -VirtualSwitch $VariableSwitch02 -Name vmk2 | Format-List
 VMotionEnabled               : False
 FaultToleranceLoggingEnabled : False
 ManagementTrafficEnabled     : False
 IPv6                         : {fe80::250:56ff:fe6e:692a/64}
 AutomaticIPv6                : False
 IPv6ThroughDhcp              : False
 IPv6Enabled                  : False
 Mtu                          : 1500
 VsanTrafficEnabled           : False
 PortGroupName                : iSCSI
 Id                           : key-vim.host.VirtualNic-vmk2
 VMHostId                     : HostSystem-host-29
 VMHost                       : 192.168.99.202
 VMHostUid                    : /VIServer=lab.local\administrator@192.168.99.220:443/VMHost=HostSystem-host-29/
 DeviceName                   : vmk2
 Mac                          : 00:50:56:6e:69:2a
 DhcpEnabled                  : False
 IP                           : 192.168.101.201
 SubnetMask                   : 255.255.255.0
 Uid                          : /VIServer=lab.local\administrator@192.168.99.220:443/VMHost=HostSystem-host-29/HostVMKernelVirtualNic=key-vim.host.VirtualNic-vmk2/
 Name                         : vmk2
 ExtensionData                : VMware.Vim.HostVirtualNic
 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> $VariablePortGroup = Get-VirtualPortGroup -Name "iSCSI"
 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Set-VirtualPortGroup -VirtualPortGroup $VariablePortGroup -VLanId 6
 Name                      Key                            VLanId PortBinding NumPorts
 ----                      ---                            ------ ----------- --------
 iSCSI                     key-vim.host.PortGroup-iSCSI   6

Load Balancing and Security Parameters

Let’s consider an example when we want to enable per-packet load balancing for vSwitch 1. This will affect LAB-SERVERS and vMotion port groups, as, by default, port groups inherit configuration defined on a vSwitch.

As shown in the first article of this series, per-packet load balancing requires the upstream switch (or switches in some scenarios) to use static link aggregation. As our switches are not physically or virtually stacked we will need to move both links to the same switch for this example to work properly. Otherwise, switches will have to rapidly flush and re-learn VM’s MAC address with frames sent by VM host over different uplinks as the result of load balancing. This will degrade the network performance and produce multiple MAC flapping alerts in the logs.

To perform configuration using vCenter, select the host, then press on the Configure tab, select Virtual switches. Then click on the vSwitch1 and press the Edit button. In the “Edit Settings” pop-up window select the “Teaming and failover” menu on the left and then choose the “Route based on IP hash” option as the load balancing mechanism.

For the next example, assume that we’ve been instructed to send a copy of all traffic received on vSwitch0 to the INFRA-SERVERS port group, so this traffic can be captured with Wireshark for some troubleshooting. The setting that we need to enable is Promiscuous mode.

We know that the correct approach for this task is to create a new port group with a single server that runs Wireshark, however, to make this example more focused on the task we will enable this setting for the existing port group. Refer to the first section of this blog post on how to create a new port group for the production environment.

We will use vCenter for this configuration. Navigate to Virtual switches in WebGUI, then select vSwitch0, as it contains the INFRA-SERVERS port group. Select the port group and press the Edit button.

In the configuration pop-up window, click on the Security menu and enable the override checkbox next to Promiscuous mode and select Accept.

Conclusion

This is the final article in the VMWare standard switch series (see part 1 and part 2) and I hope that it is helpful in getting familiar with how standards switches operate and configured.

This is the second part of the vSphere ESXi Networking Guide. In the previous post, we’ve discovered basic concepts and components of vSphere ESXi Standard Switches. This article shows how to create vSwitches step-by-step. The examples provided in the following sections are based on ESXi version 6.7.

There are several ways to configure a standard switch:

• With Direct Console User Interface (DCUI)
• Using Web-based vSphere Client of ESXi host or vCenter
• With PowerCLI

Refer to the diagram in Figure 1 for the sample topology that we will be building in this and the next articles. The environment consists of a single ESXi host running multiple VMs, which are grouped by their function as infrastructure, corporate and lab servers. The default port group called Management Network has a management port attached to it. To provide vMotion and iSCSI capability 2 extra ports and 2 port groups are configured.

VLAN allocation for each port group is documented in the list below:

• Management – VLAN 4
• vMotion – VLAN 5
• iSCSI – VLAN 6
• INFRA-SERVERS – VLAN 10
• CORP-SERVERS – VLAN 20
• LAB-SERVERS – VLAN 30

The starting topology is a newly installed ESXi host with 6 physical adapters. Let’s assume that we’ve connected physical cables and enabled only a single port on the upstream switch. Figure 2 shows the switch port configuration. It is set up as an access port in VLAN 4, meaning that there will be no 802.1q tagged frames crossing this interface. We will change this port to tag traffic in the next section.

At this stage, the ESXi host has a single virtual switch, a single VM port group for virtual machines and a single VMKernel port for management.

The end state that we will achieve as the result of configuration steps in this article is shown in Figure 3.

Console Configuration (DCUI)

There is a limited number of things you can do with the network configuration via DCUI. The console is accessed by connecting a monitor and keyboard to ESXi host or by using out-of-band vendor-specific management options provided by the server, such as HP ILO or DELL DRAC. The main use case for this method of access is the initial setup or management access troubleshooting.

Press F2 on the initial screen and type in the username and password. Figure 4 shows available options available after the login.

The next screenshot displays the Configure Management Network menu’s options and dialog windows. Network Adapters menu allows you to select physical NICs that will be used as uplinks for the default standard switch containing management port. VLAN and IPv4 Configuration settings are applied to the VMKernel ports and their group. As we don’t tag frames from the switch side, VLAN is left as unspecified.

DNS Configuration includes DNS server IPs, as well as ESXi host’s name.

After changing any of the settings above, restart the management network to activate the changes using the menu shown in Figure 6, and perform optional testing.

The last network-related menu is Network Restore Options. As shown in the screenshot below, there are 3 available options:

Restore Network Settings resets all network settings to their defaults. It removes vSwitches, port groups, VMKernel adapters that you might have created and also impacts virtual machine connectivity, so use this option only when you cannot fix the network connectivity any other way.

The next two options deal with management connectivity to ESXi host when distributed switch is used. Restore Standard Switch helps you with moving management interface to a Standard Switch when VMKernel port is currently on a Distributed Switch that is not operating as expected. Restore vDS (Virtual Distributed Switch) clones settings to a new management port keeping it within vDS.

Let’s now change upstream switch configuration for the port, so frames are now tagged. This will let us introduce additional VLANs for port groups on this switch in the following sections. The configuration on the switch will be similar to the listing below:

interface TenGigabitEthernet1/0/1
  switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
  switchport mode trunk
  switchport trunk allowed vlan 4,5,10,20
  switchport trunk native vlan 999

The configuration applied to all other switches will be following the same pattern with allowed VLAN list will change to reflect port-groups VLANs for a specific switch.

Note that unused VLAN with ID 999 is specified as native. Once this configuration is applied the connectivity to the host will be lost, as we expect VLAN 4 to be untagged. To fix this issue use DCUI: Configure Management Network > VLAN (optional) and type in VLAN ID of 4. Refer to Figure 5 which shows relevant menu screenshots. When prompted, restart management network and management connectivity will be restored.

Create vSwitch1 with WebGUI

Standard switches can be configured directly via the host, as their settings are self-contained within a single host. However, it is possible to perform configuration using vCenter too. This section will show how to create switch using direct connection first, and then how to do it via vCenter.

Create Standard Switch using ESXi host WebGUI

Log-in directly to the host. Click on Networking and then on the Virtual switches tab. Press Add standard virtual switch button and type-in switch name and optionally change any of the default settings.

As shown in the screenshot, only a single uplink can be selected when creating a new vSwitch. To add the second uplink, click on vSwitch1 and then click on the Add uplink button. Select the correct interface opposite the “Uplink 2” label.

Let’s now remove the new vSwitch, so we can create it with vCenter. Click on Networking > Virtual switches > select row with vSwitch1 > click on Actions > Remove.

Create Standard Switch using vCenter host WebGUI

Another available option is to perform configuration via vCenter. The process is slightly different, but it achieves the same result as the direct configuration via ESXi host. Login into vCenter, Click on the desired hostname or IP address, then navigate to Configure > Networking > Virtual Switches and press Add Networking.

The next series of screenshots show the steps involved in creating new vSwitch. Note that the wizard combines this process with the configuration of a new VMKernel adapter, Virtual Machine Port group, or an upstream physical network adapter. As port groups will be covered in the next blog post, we will just use uplink adapter as our choice.

Note that you can add multiple uplinks at once by either pressing the “+” button several times on the third mini-screenshot below or by holding the Alt button to select multiple adapters on the fourth screen step.

Create vSwitch2 with PowerCLI

PowerCLI is a PowerShell Module provided by VMware. This how-to article provides instructions on how to install it.

As with WebGUI, it is possible to connect with PowerCLI either to ESXi host directly or to a vCenter appliance. In the examples of this section, we will connect to vCenter. The commands behave in a similar way, with the exception that we need to specify which host’s virtual switch we want to apply PowerShell cmdlets to. We will start with first connecting to the vCenter and then displaying virtual switches with the Get-VirtualSwitch command. I am using an example from command reference for Get-VirtualSwitch on the VMware website to perform pipe-based filtering from Get-VMHost cmdlet.

Note that we can see that there are 2 vSwitches we’ve configured in earlier sections. If you have a connection to an ESXi host, then you can just use Get-VirtualSwitch, as you will have access to a single host, so it doesn’t need to be explicitly specified.

By default, PowerShell formats the output as a table, so we cannot see all available properties. To address this, we can pipe the output with “|” character to Format-List cmdlet, which uses list-based formatting.

PowerCLI exposes certain properties that are not visible in GUI, such as a number of ports virtual switch has.

Windows PowerShell
 Copyright (C) 2016 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Connect-VIServer 192.168.99.220
 Name                           Port  User
 ----                           ----  ----
 192.168.99.220                 443   LAB.LOCAL\Administrator
 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-VMHost -Name "192.168.99.202" | Get-VirtualSwitch
 Name                           NumPorts   Mtu   Notes
 ----                           --------   ---   -----
 vSwitch0                       2560       1500
 vSwitch1                       2560       1500
 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-VMHost -Name "192.168.99.202" | Get-VirtualSwitch | Format-List
 Id                : key-vim.host.VirtualSwitch-vSwitch0
 Key               : key-vim.host.VirtualSwitch-vSwitch0
 Name              : vSwitch0
 NumPorts          : 2560
 NumPortsAvailable : 2547
 Nic               : {vmnic0}
 Mtu               : 1500
 VMHostId          : HostSystem-host-29
 VMHost            : 192.168.99.202
 VMHostUid         : /VIServer=lab.local\administrator@192.168.99.220:443/VMHost=HostSystem-host-29/
 Uid               : /VIServer=lab.local\administrator@192.168.99.220:443/VMHost=HostSystem-host-29/VirtualSwitch=key-vim.host.VirtualSwitch-vSwitch0/
 ExtensionData     : VMware.Vim.HostVirtualSwitch
 Id                : key-vim.host.VirtualSwitch-vSwitch1
 Key               : key-vim.host.VirtualSwitch-vSwitch1
 Name              : vSwitch1
 NumPorts          : 2560
 NumPortsAvailable : 2547
 Nic               : {vmnic2, vmnic3}
 Mtu               : 1500
 VMHostId          : HostSystem-host-29
 VMHost            : 192.168.99.202
 VMHostUid         : /VIServer=lab.local\administrator@192.168.99.220:443/VMHost=HostSystem-host-29/
 Uid               : /VIServer=lab.local\administrator@192.168.99.220:443/VMHost=HostSystem-host-29/VirtualSwitch=key-vim.host.VirtualSwitch-vSwitch1/
 ExtensionData     : VMware.Vim.HostVirtualSwitch

To create a virtual switch with PowerCLI we need to use New-VirtualSwitch cmdlet. We will use the example provided in command reference to achieve this. The last command in the listing below uses –Name switch with Get-VirtualSwitch to filter the output so the only newly created switch is shown.

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-VMHost -Name "192.168.99.202" | New-VirtualSwitch -Name "vSwitch2" -Nic vmnic4,vmnic5
 Name                           NumPorts   Mtu   Notes
 ----                           --------   ---   -----
 vSwitch2                       2560       1500
 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-VMHost -Name "192.168.99.202" | Get-VirtualSwitch
 Name                           NumPorts   Mtu   Notes
 ----                           --------   ---   -----
 vSwitch0                       2560       1500
 vSwitch1                       2560       1500
 vSwitch2                       2560       1500
 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-VMHost -Name "192.168.99.202" | Get-VirtualSwitch -Name "vSwitch2" | Format-List
 Id                : key-vim.host.VirtualSwitch-vSwitch2
 Key               : key-vim.host.VirtualSwitch-vSwitch2
 Name              : vSwitch2
 NumPorts          : 2560
 NumPortsAvailable : 2544
 Nic               : {vmnic4, vmnic5}
 Mtu               : 1500
 VMHostId          : HostSystem-host-29
 VMHost            : 192.168.99.202
 VMHostUid         : /VIServer=lab.local\administrator@192.168.99.220:443/VMHost=HostSystem-host-29/
 Uid               : /VIServer=lab.local\administrator@192.168.99.220:443/VMHost=HostSystem-host-29/VirtualSwitch=key-vim.host.VirtualSwitch-vSwitch2/
 ExtensionData     : VMware.Vim.HostVirtualSwitch

Now we have almost achieved the desired target topology with the exception of the second physical adapter attached to vSwitch0. The cmdlet name performing this operation is Add-VirtualSwitchPhysicalNetworkAdapter and we are using modified example 2 from the command reference.

Note how variables are used to store an object returned by Get-* cmdlets. They must start with the dollar sign “$”. We then can use these variables as parameters in other cmdlets.

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> $VariableSwitch01 = Get-VMHost -Name "192.168.99.202" | Get-VirtualSwitch -Name "vSwitch0"
 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> $VariableAdapter01 = Get-VMHost -Name "192.168.99.202" | Get-VMHostNetworkAdapter -Physical -Name vmnic1
 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Add-VirtualSwitchPhysicalNetworkAdapter -VirtualSwitch $VariableSwitch01 -VMHostPhysicalNic $VariableAdapter01
 Confirm
 Are you sure you want to perform this action?
 Performing the operation "Adding physical network adapter(s) 'vmnic1'" on target "vSwitch0".
 [Y] Yes  [A] Yes to All  [N] No  [L] No to All  [S] Suspend  [?] Help (default is "Y"): y
 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-VMHost -Name "192.168.99.202" | Get-VirtualSwitch -Name "vSwitch0" | Format-List
 Id                : key-vim.host.VirtualSwitch-vSwitch0
 Key               : key-vim.host.VirtualSwitch-vSwitch0
 Name              : vSwitch0
 NumPorts          : 2560
 NumPortsAvailable : 2543
 Nic               : {vmnic0, vmnic1}
 Mtu               : 1500
 VMHostId          : HostSystem-host-29
 VMHost            : 192.168.99.202
 VMHostUid         : /VIServer=lab.local\administrator@192.168.99.220:443/VMHost=HostSystem-host-29/
 Uid               : /VIServer=lab.local\administrator@192.168.99.220:443/VMHost=HostSystem-host-29/VirtualSwitch=key-vim.host.VirtualSwitch-vSwitch0/
 ExtensionData     : VMware.Vim.HostVirtualSwitch

In the next article, we will continue the configuration of our topology.

This is a how-to article on how to perform VMware PowerCLI installation on Windows. PowerCLI is a module for Windows PowerShell, however, it also supports macOS and Ubuntu running PowerShell Core 6.x.

Installation procedure

Step 1. In this example, I’m using Windows 10 Professional. Start typing-in “powershell” and in search results right-click on the Windows PowerShell icon and select Run as Administrator.

Step 2. Validate that the system doesn’t have modules installed. In PowerShell console type in:

Get-Module -ListAvailable -Name VMware*

The cmdlet above displays currently imported and installed (with -ListAvailable) modules which have a name starting with VMware.

Step 3. To perform the installation:

Install-Module -Name VMware.PowerCLI

The prompt will appear with a warning of an untrusted repository. To proceed, type Y and wait for the installation to complete.

Wait for the installation to complete as shown in the screenshot below.

Re-running Get-Module cmdlet from step 1 will now display VMware modules.

Connect to ESXi Host or vCenter

To connect to VMHost use the following command:

Connect-VIServer <vm_host_ip_address_or_fqdn>

In many cases self-signed certificate is used with ESXi and the invalid certificate error will be raised, as shown in the screenshot below.

To get the system prompt for invalid certificates and remove warning about the Customer Experience Improvement Program type in:

Set-PowerCLIConfiguration -Scope User –ParticipateInCeip:$false -InvalidCertificateAction Prompt

To ignore the certificate warning and disable prompts use this variant of command:

Set-PowerCLIConfiguration -Scope User –ParticipateInCeip:$false -InvalidCertificateAction Ignore –Confirm:$false

Now Connect-VIServer will work after the certificate is accepted.

Pre-requisites and useful links

PowerCLI Official Downloads and Documentation page. This page contains other links below and has version switch which leads to documentation for the versions different than 11.5.0.

https://code.vmware.com/web/tool/11.5.0/vmware-powercli

Compatibility matrix (with pre-requisites):

https://code.vmware.com/docs/10257/compatibility-matrix

PowerCLI cmdlet reference:

https://code.vmware.com/docs/10197/cmdlet-reference

PowerCLI user guide:

https://code.vmware.com/docs/10242/powercli-11-5-0-user-s-guide

PowerShell Gallery:

https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/VMware.PowerCLI/11.5.0.14912921