Friday, June 25, 2021

Router-On-A-Stick configuration with a Firewall VM on ESXi and a Physical Switch ?!

Hi,

I have the following in my lab.

  • Physical Managed Switch
  • Physical ESXi server (connected to port 5 on switch)
  • Windows 10 VM running on ESXi Server (connected to vmnic1, port 6 on TP-Link)
  • OPNsense Firewall VM running on ESXi Server (connected to vmnic1, port 6 on TP-Link)

The OPNsense Firewall VM can do Sub-Interfaces, and VLAN tags.

I'm looking to have Router-On-A-Stick configuration where the Router VM is running inside ESXi while the switch is physical. All VLAN configurations will be on the physical switch. I have read that VLAN configurations must be done on either the physical switch or vSwitch, not both.

The way I see it the traffic flowing this case is as follows:

  • Traffic from Windows 10 VM will come to vSwitch11 (VLAN 11 vSwitch connected to vmnic1, port 6 on physical switch)
  • Traffic from Port 6 will go to Port 5 on physical switch (Port 5 is trunk and is vmnic0 in ESXi)
  • Firewall VM vNIC is vmnic0 will receive VLAN11 traffic

My question is whether Router-On-A-Stick possible this way and will traffic will ever leave ESXi vSwitch ?

Thank You



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