Learn how use basic settings for a vSphere Distributed Switch with setting the switch name and number of uplinks. You can also learn how to use advanced settings for a distributed switch including Cisco Discovery Protocol and the maximum MTU for the switch.

Procedure

  1. In the vSphere Client Home page, click Networking and select the distributed switch.
  2. On the Configure tab, expand Settings and select Properties.
  3. Click Edit.
  4. Click General to edit the vSphere Distributed Switch settings.
    Option Description
    Name Enter the name for the distributed switch.
    Network I/O Control To activate or deactivate Network I/O control, use the drop-down menu.
    Note: This menu option is deactivated if the Network Offloads compatiblity is activated.
    Network offloads compatibility
    To select the type of network offloads compatibility, use the drop-down menu.
    • None: If you select None, network offloads compatibility is not activated.
    • Pensando: If you select Pensando the Network I/O control is deactivated.
    • NVIDIA BlueField: If you select NVIDIA BlueField the Network I/O control is deactivated.
    Description Add or modify a description of the distributed switch settings.
  5. Click Advanced to edit the vSphere Distributed Switch settings.
    Option Description
    MTU (Bytes) Maximum MTU size for the vSphere Distributed Switch. To enable jumbo frames, set a value greater than 1500 bytes.
    Multicast filtering mode
    • Basic. The distributed switch forwards traffic that is related to a multicast group based on a MAC address generated from the last 23 bits of the IPv4 address of the group.
    • IGMP/MLD snooping. The distributed switch forwards multicast traffic to virtual machines according to the IPv4 and IPv6 addresses of subscribed multicast groups by using membership messages defined by the Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP ) and Multicast Listener Discovery protocol.
    Discovery Protocol
    1. Select Cisco Discovery Protocol, Link Layer Discovery Protocol, or (disabled) from the Type drop-down menu.
    2. Set Operation to Listen, Advertise, or Both.

    For information about Discovery Protocol, see Switch Discovery Protocol.

    Administrator Contact Enter the name and other details of the administrator for the distributed switch.
  6. Click Uplinks to edit the vSphere Distributed Switch settings.
    Option Description
    Number of uplinks Select Add to add uplink ports for the distributed switch.

    Edit uplink names to modify the names of the uplinks.

  7. Click OK.