Enable 1GB Ethernet Ports on ESX Host in UCS Cluster?

[ericevanz1]

I was curious if it is possible to enable and use the physical 1GB ethernet ports on an HX240c that's a member of a UCS cluster?  The only ports avail. in ESX are the 8 built into the twinax card, and when I browse the big hardware list it seems those are the only ones present.  Disjointed L2 would increase the scope of the project immensely as I would have to re-address many servers off of Vlan 1.  Thanks.

[Steven Tardy · Accepted solution]

No.

The 1Gbps "LOM" port gets disabled when connected to UCS Fabric Interconnects.

• https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/hyperconverged-infrastructure/hyperflex-hx-series/hx-240c-m5-specsheet.pdf
  • Figure 3 Chassis Rear View
    • 10     1 GE dedicated management port

You can add an standard "unmanaged" (by UCS Manager) PCI NIC which will accomplish what you want.

[ericevanz1]

You're talking about another discrete piece of hardware, correct?

[Steven Tardy]

Correct. Another piece of physical hardware.

Ideally a PID from the spec sheet as those have been tested/QA'd/validated, but any PCI NIC should function:

• Network Interface Card (NIC)
  • HX-PCIE-IRJ45 Intel i350 Quad Port 1Gb Adapter *HHHL
  • HX-PCIE-ID10GF Intel X710-DA2 dual-port 10G SFP+ NIC *HHHL
  • HX-PCIE-ID10GC Intel X550-T2 dual-port 10GBase-T NIC *HHHL
  • HX-PCIE-ID25GF Intel XXV710-DA2 10-dual-port 25G NIC *HHHL