Creating Virtual Switches

To provide network access for virtual machines, you must create virtual network switches (vswitches) for them. This section describes how to create a new vswitch on the VM Host. The vswitch is used by a virtual machine to connect to the network: one or more virtual machines connect to the vswitch and the vswitch is connected to a VM Host's physical network device.

To create a vswitch, select CreateVirtual Switch from the VM Manager menu. This displays a page similar to that shown in Figure 4-4.

Figure 4-4 Create Virtual Switch Page

The table on the screen shown in Figure 4-4 displays the following information:

LAN interface: Shows the physical LAN interface to which a vswitch can be attached. The “(none)” entry indicates that the vswitch is local, meaning that it not connected to a LAN interface. Communication over such a vswitch does not go out on the physical network and is useful only for communicating between virtual machines.
Used by: Shows all of the vswitches already configured to use the corresponding LAN interface. A LAN interface can be used by only one vswitch at a time. You can configure multiple vswitches that use the same LAN card, but only one of these switches can be active at one time. In the row for creating a local vswitch [“(none)” entry], the Used by column lists all existing local vswitches. All local vswitches can be active simultaneously. A new local vswitch can be started regardless of the number of existing active local vswitches.
Hardware path: Shows the hardware path associated with the LAN interface.
Supports AVIO: Shows whether the physical backing device supports Accelerated Virtual Input/Output (AVIO). For each virtual machine containing an AVIO device, the VM Host OS and the guest OS must support AVIO. In addition, HP strongly recommends that AVIO components (such as drivers and libraries) on the virtual machine be updated to the latest release of the OS. If the virtual machine OS is Windows or Linux, install additional AVIO-compatible drivers on the VM Host and virtual machine; the Windows and Linux AVIO drivers include instructions for installing the drivers on virtual machines. In addition, if the virtual machine OS is HP-UX, the AVIO components on the VM Host and virtual machine should be from the same release of the OS; for example, both VM Host and virtual machine should use the components from the same OE or from the same Web Release (for example, WEB0803).
With HP Integrity VM, AVIO requires a vswitch that has a physical network device as the backing device (local vswitches such as localnet are not supported). In addition, the physical NIC that backs the virtual switch must have an AVIO-compatible driver.
For more information about AVIO requirements, see the HP Integrity Virtual Machines Installation, Configuration, and Administration manual.

Create the virtual switch by performing the following steps:

(Required) Enter a virtual switch name.
- The name must be 8 characters or fewer.
- The allowable characters are A-Z, a-z, 0-9, dash (-), underscore (_), and period (.).
- The name cannot begin with a dash and cannot remain blank.

Specify the virtual switch type (whether it is to be dedicated or shareable). The default is shareable.

NOTE: The terms "shareable" and "dedicated" refer to how the switch is assigned to the virtual machines.

A dedicated vswitch can be used by only one started virtual machine at a time and is dedicated to providing network throughput to that virtual machine. More than one virtual machine can have the same dedicated switch as a resource, but only one is allowed to start.

A shareable vswitch can be used at any given time by all the associated virtual machines that contain the virtual network device (NIC) backed by a shareable vswitch.




	NOTE: All virtual machines with virtual NICs backed by a shareable vswitch are not required to be running. If you have a stopped virtual machine that uses the shareable vswitch, you can always start the virtual machine (unless other problems prevent it from starting).

(Required) From the table, select the VM Host's physical network device that will be the physical backing of the vswitch.
Choices include the following:
- Any physical network cards (adapters) configured on the VM Host
- Any APA (Automatic Port Aggregation) configured on the VM Host
  The display shows the APA name in one column and the individual devices or cards in the next column; however, the letters "APA" do not appear in either column. In HP-UX, any LAN port with port number 900 or greater is an APA (for example, lan900 or lan901).
- None
  This creates a local vswitch. When no physical network device on the VM Host is chosen, the vswitch is a local vswitch. A local vswitch has no connection with any physical network device on the VM Host. Virtual machine virtual network interface cards (vNICs) can communicate only with other virtual machines on the same VM Host that are connected to the same local vswitch.
Specify whether or not to start the vswitch after it is created. The default is to start the vswitch.

Clicking OK does the following:

Creates the new vswitch, using the hpvmnet command.
If you chose to make the vswitch dedicated, configures the vswitch as a dedicated vswitch, using the hpvmdevmgmt command.
If you chose to have the switch started, starts the vswitch, using the hpvmnet command.

A preview of these commands is shown in the Command Preview area. After you click OK, any errors that occur with the execution of these commands is displayed on a separate error page that lists each command and whether the command succeeded, failed, or was not attempted. Clicking OK on the error page returns you to the Create Vswitch page.

Creating Virtual Switches

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