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Network

At Virtual Machine Manager > Network, you can create virtual switches of different types according to your needs.

External virtual switch

An external virtual switch allows virtual machines to access physical networks to communicate with other computers or devices on external networks. You should assign physical network interfaces to an external virtual switch as uplinks. When you assign multiple physical network interfaces to an external virtual switch, the system will automatically select a physical network interface to bridge the virtual network interface with, in order to provide load balancing and fault tolerance.

Private virtual switch

A private virtual switch only allows communication between virtual machines on the same host that the virtual switch belongs to. Please note that a virtual machine cannot perform live migration if it uses any private virtual switch.

Note:

  • When a cluster is created, all physical network interfaces will join the virtual switch Default VM Network.
  • If some of the network interfaces of a virtual switch do not work, the status of the virtual switch becomes Warning, but the network connection of the virtual machines will still be available.
  • If all network interfaces of a virtual switch do not work, the status of the virtual switch becomes Error. Please check the network devices and confirm the network connectivity in your environment.

To create a virtual switch:

  1. Click Add and specify a name for the new virtual switch.
  2. Select a type. When the connection type is external, select the network interface or interfaces you want to add to this virtual switch. When the connection type is private, select a host.
  3. You can specify VLAN ID for an external virtual switch (optional).
  4. Click OK to save the settings.

Note:

  • An external virtual switch must contain at least one network interface.
  • A virtual machine cannot perform live migration if the virtual machine uses any private virtual switches.

To modify a virtual switch:

  1. Select a virtual switch.
  2. Click Action > Edit to change the name.
  3. If the connection type is external, you can change the VLAN ID. Alternatively, you can also add or delete certain network interfaces.
  4. If the connection type is private, you can change the host which the virtual switch belongs to.

To delete a virtual switch:

  1. Select a virtual switch.
  2. Click Action > Delete.

Note:

  • If a virtual switch is deleted, all the virtual interfaces in the switch will be disconnected. To reassign a virtual switch for the virtual interfaces, please go to Virtual Machine Manager > Virtual Machine > Edit.