You might have to change the supported traffic type for a VMkernel adapter, or the way IPv4 or IPv6 addresses are obtained.

Procedure

  1. In the vSphere Web Client, navigate to the host.
  2. On the Configure tab, expand Networking and select VMkernel adapters.
  3. Select the VMkernel adapter that resides on the target distributed or standard switch and click Edit.
  4. On the Port properties page, select the services that you want to enable.
    Check box Description
    vMotion traffic Enables the VMkernel adapter to advertise itself to another host as the network connection where vMotion traffic is sent. If this property is not enabled for any VMkernel adapter, migration with vMotion to the selected host is not possible.
    Provisioning traffic Handles the data transferred for virtual machine cold migration, cloning, and snapshot migration.
    Fault Tolerance traffic Enables Fault Tolerance logging on the host. You can use only one VMkernel adapter for FT traffic per host.
    Management traffic Enables the management traffic for the host and vCenter Server. Typically, hosts have such a VMkernel adapter created when the ESXi software was installed. You can have an additional VMkernel adapter for management traffic on the host to provide redundancy.
    vSphere Replication traffic Handles the outgoing replication data that is sent from the sourceESXi host to the vSphere Replication server.
    vSphere Replication NFC traffic Handles the incoming replication data on the target replication site.
    vSAN Enables vSAN traffic on the host. Every host that is part from a vSAN cluster must have such a VMkernel adapter.
  5. On the NIC settings page, set the MTU for the network adapter.
  6. With IPv4 enabled, in the IPv4 settings section, select the method by which IP addresses are obtained.
    Option Description
    Obtain IPv4 settings automatically Use DHCP to obtain IP settings. A DHCP server must be present on the network.
    Use static IPv4 settings

    Enter the IPv4 IP address and subnet mask for the VMkernel adapter.

    The VMkernel Default Gateway and DNS server addresses for IPv4 are obtained from the selected TCP/IP stack.

    Select the Override default gateway for this adapter check box and enter a gateway address, if you want to specify a different gateway for the VMkernel adapter.
    Note: Selected netstack should have the default gateway explicitly on each host.
  7. With IPv6 enabled, in the IPv6 settings select an option for obtaining IPv6 addresses.
    Note: The IPv6 option does not appear on hosts that do not have IPv6 enabled.
    Option Description
    Obtain IPv6 addresses automatically through DHCP Use DHCP to obtain IPv6 addresses. A DHCPv6 server must be present on the network.
    Obtain IPv6 addresses automatically through Router Advertisement Use router advertisement to obtain IPv6 addresses.

    In ESXi 6.5 and later router advertisement is enabled by default and supports the M and O flags in accordance with RFC 4861.

    Static IPv6 addresses
    1. Click Add IPv6 address to add a new IPv6 address.
    2. Enter the IPv6 address and subnet prefix length, and click OK.
    3. To change the VMkernel default gateway, click Override default gateway for this adapter.

    The VMkernel Default Gateway address for IPv6 is obtained from the selected TCP/IP stack.

    On the IPv6 settings page, click Advanced settings to remove IPv6 addresses. If router advertisement is enabled, removed addresses from this origin might reappear. Removal of DHCP addresses on the VMkernel adapter is not supported. These addresses are removed only when the DHCP option is turned off.

  8. On the Analyze impact page, verify that the changes made to the VMKernel adapter will not disrupt other operations.
  9. Click OK.