VMWare ESX remote NIC configuration

POSTED IN blog | TAGS : esx, network, root, vmware
10.04.2009

This is a quick guide that shows you how to enable SSH on your VMWare ESX server and then how to configure the physical NIC card remotely using SSH and Putty.

Before you start you will need:
Putty

If you cannot connect via Putty, you will need to physically go to the server and enable it using the following commands.

Allowing root to remote SSH onto the ESX server:

1. Access to local server console and from the local console, either at the server, remote management or similar login as root to the ESX server.
2. Navigate to the ssh folder, eg: cd /etc/ssh
3. Open the sshd_config file with a text editor, eg: vi or nano. example vi sshd_config
4. Go to the line where it says PermitRootLogin no (In my file it’s about line 32) and change the no to yes use ZZ to save and exit
5. Save the file and restart the sshd service: service sshd restart

Configuring/Creating the switch:

View existing configuration:

esxcfg-vswitch -l

Creating the switch:

esxcfg-vswitch -a vSwitch1

Creating the virtual network:

esxcfg-vswitch -A “Backup Network” vSwitch1

Adding the NIC

esxcfg-vswitch -L vmnic1 vSwitch1

Configuring the NIC

esxcfg-vswif -a vswif1 -p “Backup Network” -i 10.0.0.101 -n 255.255.254.0