ESXi woes

Angry

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 27, 2006
Messages
481
I ran into an issue a few minutes ago with running DD-wrt x86 in ESXi.

What I did, was use the VMware standalone converter to convert my DD-wrtx86 Workstation VM to an ESXi VM.

All of that went well, however, I could not get the DD-wrt ESXi VM to see the WAN of the modem.

Usually, with my workstation VM of DD-wrt, I disable all protocols for the NIC I added thats connected to the modem, except the VMware Bridge protocol. And bridge it to VMnet4 in the Virtual Network Editor.
And works, it passes what the modem sends to the NIC directly to the DD-wrt VM. It gets the IP address and everything from the modem. (this is the 1st NIC that dd-wrt sees, and sees it as WAN)

And then the built in NIC of the motherboard is bridged to Vmnet1 in Virtual Network Editor, and is left alone protocol wise and is connected to a physical switch. (this is the 2nd NIC dd-wr sees) From there, it acts just like a hardwired router. Perfectly. It does take the Windows 7 host a few extra min to get an IP, however everything connected to the physical switch gets served quickly.

Ive set it up similar, or so I thought in ESXi, the DD-wrt x86 served out DHCP perfectly to virtual and physical hosts via the built in NIC. But as I said, the 2nd NIC thats connected to the modem, DD-wrt X86 isnt seeing WAN side.

So, I guess I either need to somehow "bridge" the 2nd NIC thats connected to the modem on the ESXi host to the DD-wrt x86 VM, or Direct pass the 2nd NIC to the dd-wrt ESXi Vm?

My ESXi host doesnt support DirectPath unfortunately.

And from what I can tell here:
ddwrtx86config.jpg

Im feeding the modem directly to a virtual switch, instead of the DD-wrt X86 VM in ESXi?
Is there a way to around that?

:edit: Right now it disconnected because I switched back to Workstation to get my internet back.
 
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The DD-wrt feeds off a "vswitch" but it should be the only machine connected to the wan, Under security tho, on the vswitch used for wan, whats promiscuous mode should be enabled, seems to work fine for me


I also always have a nic for my "LAN" connection, and then run that out to a physical switch. actually isolates the internet connection to always filter through that particular VM
 
You could try PCI passthrough for that interface too. Might make it somewhat simpler.
 
Well promiscuous mode doesnt work, I enabled it both on the Vswitch, and the connection, with no luck.
The DD-wrt VM doesnt seem to get anything from the modem.

And the motherboard in this host doesnt support pass through unfortunatly.
I guess Im out till I get a motherboard that does, and grab a couple of NIC that I can pass through directly to the dd-wrt VM.
 
Your second NIC (vmnic1) isn't linked. It's not a dd-wrt issue..it's a "ESXi doesn't think that NIC is up and connected" issue. Have a green link light?
 
Your second NIC (vmnic1) isn't linked. It's not a dd-wrt issue..it's a "ESXi doesn't think that NIC is up and connected" issue. Have a green link light?

That picture was taken, after I disconnected it from my ESXi host back to my VMware Workstation host. Even when its linked, it doesnt work.
 
What type of NIC (Flexible, VMXNet3, etc) is the Modem NIC set for? Does DD-WRT see it? Load the driver for it?
 
What type of NIC (Flexible, VMXNet3, etc) is the Modem NIC set for? Does DD-WRT see it? Load the driver for it?

Hmm...Where do I find that? Coulda swore I knew that last night, then again it was 4am...

EDit:

They are set to E1000, which is the driver DD-wrt loads.
 
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I bet you changed the MAC address that your modem is seeing. If you didn't release the lease on "your" IP before you changed the MAC "your" IP is probably still bound to the old MAC.

If that is the case you can switch back to the old setup (ie. old MAC) and release it or wait for you lease to expire and renew on the new MAC (who knows how long that will be). The final option is call your ISP and see if they can break the lease.

Or I could be totally wrong :)
 
Usually I can reset the cable modem and all is well. Never had an issue.
In either case, that cant happen due to the fact that the NIC thats in my Win7 rig that I run VMware workstation on, isnt compatible with ESXi.
 
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