ESXi Box with FreeNas VM with 2 Physical Systems attached to ESXI/FreeNAS VM, possible?

[n00bftw]

As the title states, I have a system with ESXi that has 2 physical NICs, and a FreeNAS VM inside. Currently, I have one physical system connected via port 1 on the ESXI systems NIC, I can successfully connect to both the ESXi management network and the FreeNAS VM on said machine. I would like to set up a second physical system (port 2 on ESXi box NIC) to be able to access the FreeNAS VM, if not the ESXi management network also.

The current switch etc..... setup inside VMware is currently untouched.

 

[Rand__]

Thats no problem if you use a second network for the second NIC/mgmt network/FN interface

 

[n00bftw]

Thats no problem if you use a second network for the second NIC/mgmt network/FN interface

I am having trouble setting it up :/

 

[Rand__]

Well then it might help explaining what you have so far and where the problems lie...

 

[n00bftw]

Well then it might help explaining what you have so far and where the problems lie...

I just want the second machine (VMNIC1) to be able to connect to FreeNAS, like the first machine already can on VMNIC0. I currently have it all wired up, no settings in ESXi have been changed as of yet.

 

[n00bftw]

This is the FreeNas VM currently, setup for the first machine, and works fine, connected to port1 on the ESXi box's NIC, which is VMNIC0 under ESXI. Now i need to sort the seconds machine out, which connects to the ESXI box on port 2 - VMNIC1?

 

[Rand__]

Just replicate the first vswitch with a second identical one (ie second vswitch, second vmkernel adapter, second client network), assign that with the second nic and a second network ip in a separate subnet. make sure to tag it with management if you want to manage esxi from that too.
assign a new nic from the new client network to freenas.

If you want Network1 (client1) to be able to talk to network2 (client2) as well you'll need a router vm too

 

[n00bftw]

Just replicate the first vswitch with a second identical one (ie second vswitch, second vmkernel adapter, second client network), assign that with the second nic and a second network ip in a separate subnet. make sure to tag it with management if you want to manage esxi from that too.
assign a new nic from the new client network to freenas.

If you want Network1 (client1) to be able to talk to network2 (client2) as well you'll need a router vm too

Can i not just put both nics on the same vswitch?

 

[Rand__]

Theoretically it might work if you properly route the traffic through the uplinks, but a vswitch is free so why not make it clean?

 

[n00bftw]

Just replicate the first vswitch with a second identical one (ie second vswitch, second vmkernel adapter, second client network), assign that with the second nic and a second network ip in a separate subnet. make sure to tag it with management if you want to manage esxi from that too.
assign a new nic from the new client network to freenas.

If you want Network1 (client1) to be able to talk to network2 (client2) as well you'll need a router vm too

Thanks for the help Rand, managed to do it

 

[Rand__]

Glad to hear that