Configuring VMware ESXi 3.5 NIC Teaming
NIC redundancy is easy to do in VMware ESXi and should be done if your system has two NICs and if your system only has one I would recommend purchasing a second one. Once you have installed VMware ESXi you will be able to make minimal configuration changes. With a fresh install be sure to change the root password which is the first option, after that go into Configure Management Network.
By default only the primary NIC will be used, the right pane shows vmnic0 being used, to create the team go into Network Adapters.
Select each NIC that you want to include in the team, you will press space bar to select them, for this installation I am going to use only two of the four NICs. When you are done press enter and it will take you back to the previous screen where you should see vmnic0 and vmnic1 on the right pane.
Since your primary NIC probably picked up an IP address from DHCP you will want to change it to a static, to do this go into IP configuration and select "Set static IP address and network configuration".
Verify that your DNS settings are correct if they were picked up by DHCP, if not change them to suite your network. You would also change your hostname in this section, press enter when done to go back to the previous screen.
When you exit back to the main screen it will prompt you to save the changes and restart the management network, press Y to do this and you should be good to go. With any redundant system it is always wise to verify that it is working as intended. Now would be the ideal time since the system is not in production yet, start a continuous ping and unplug the primary NIC, you should only see a few packets drop if any. Plug the primary NIC back in, wait a few seconds and unplug the secondary NIC and your ping should continue.
