topic Catalyst 9800v on ESXi in Wireless

Catalyst 9800v on ESXi

KevinR99 — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 15:15:18 GMT

We have a lab Cat9800 running on an ESXi server. I can get the management interface working and APs will register. However, I am having problems adding additional vlans and svi's to use on SSIDs.

vmnic0 carries my management interface and that is ok

vmnic1 is connected to a switch. I am trying to use vlans 10,20 and 30 for testing so I create them on the switch and give their SVIs IP addresses. I then allow these vlans up the physical interface/trunk connected to vmnic1.

On the ESXi I connect vSwitch1 to vmnic1. I then create port groups vlan10, vlan 20 and vlan 30 and attach them to vSwitch1.

On the c9800v I then create vlans 10,20 and 30 along with svi's. On the external switch the port I am expecting to use sees G2 on the Cat9800v connected to it. So I go to G2, make it a trunk and add vlans 10,20 and 30. Finally I add 3 network adapters to my C9800v. Adapter 1 is the management interface which works fine. Network adapters 2,3 and 4 then attach to vmware port groups vlan10, 20 and 30 respectively. So with these port groups attached to vSwitch 1 and it is connected to vmnic1 I expected these vlans to be trunked out of G2 and to the outside switch. However, I cannot see the svi mac addresses on the external switch nor can I ping the SVI's.

VMware isn't a strong point for me so I suspect I've missed something here. Anyone setup a Cat9800v in a similar way?

Thanks for any input, Kev.

Re: Catalyst 9800v on ESXi

Mark Elsen — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 16:44:31 GMT

- From a controller point of view review its current configuration with the CLI command : show tech wireless , have the output analyzed by https://cway.cisco.com/tools/WirelessAnalyzer/ , please note do not use classical show tech-support (short version) , use the command denoted in green for Wireless Analyzer. The result may also give some hints as to correct current experienced issues with the vlans , trunks and svis.

Re: Catalyst 9800v on ESXi

Rasika Nayanajith — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 17:41:01 GMT

I would check ESXi port group configured with correct security settings & allow all those vlan traffic to trunk

Since you got two ports from 9800, you may need to put a static route pointing those SVI specific subnets to respective gateway address. Otherwise all exit traffic may go to management interface gateway as default route configured that as next hop.

HTH
Rasika

Re: Catalyst 9800v on ESXi

KevinR99 — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 16:15:10 GMT

Rasika

This worked with one exception. I couldn't seem to trunk all vlans on the C9800v down one "physical" interface. I had to attach each vlan and its SVI to an individual interface which then attaches to one port group, a vswitch and a vmnic. It then connects to an access port on an external switch. Maybe there is a way to trunk all vlans on one interface but for now this setup meets my needs.

Thanks for your input. Kev.