You configure your edge gateways to provide Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) services to VMs connected to the associated organization virtual data center (VDC) networks in VMware Cloud Director.
As described in the NSX documentation, an NSX edge gateway capabilities include IP address pooling, one-to-one static IP address allocation, and external DNS server configuration. Static IP address binding is based on the managed object ID and interface ID of the requesting client virtual machine.
The DHCP service for an NSX edge gateway:
- Listens on the internal interface of the edge gateway for DHCP discovery.
- Uses the IP address of the internal interface of the edge gateway as the default gateway address for all clients.
- Uses the broadcast and subnet mask values of the internal interface for the container network.
In the following situations, you need to restart the DHCP service on the client virtual machines that have the DHCP-assigned IP addresses:
- You changed or deleted a DHCP pool, default gateway, or DNS server.
- You changed the internal IP address of the edge gateway instance.
Note: If the DNS settings on a edge gateway which has DHCP activated are changed, the edge gateway might stop providing DHCP services. If this situation occurs, use the
DHCP Service Status toggle on the DHCP Pools screen to deactivate and then reactivate DHCP on that edge gateway. See
Add a DHCP IP Pool on an NSX Data Center for vSphere Edge Gateway in the VMware Cloud Director Service Provider Admin Portal.