NFS Networking

An ESXi host uses TCP/IP network connection to access a remote NAS server. Certain guidelines and best practices exist for configuring the networking when you use NFS storage.

For more information, see the vSphere Networking documentation.

• For network connectivity, use a standard network adapter in your ESXi host.
• ESXi supports Layer 2 and Layer 3 Network switches. If you use Layer 3 switches, ESXi hosts and NFS storage arrays must be on different subnets and the network switch must handle the routing information.
• Configure a VMkernel port group for NFS storage. You can create the VMkernel port group for IP storage on an existing virtual switch (vSwitch) or on a new vSwitch. The vSwitch can be a vSphere Standard Switch (VSS) or a vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS).
• If you use multiple ports for NFS traffic, make sure that you correctly configure your virtual switches and physical switches.
• NFS 3 and NFS 4.1 support IPv6.