vswitch and vswif in VMware ESX

by Eddy on

If you are new to VMware ESX then you will see lot of new terminologies used in virtualization environment.

I have been asked by my friends who are in System administration field for years but virtualization is new to them. This is most common question where beginners in ESX environment have hard time understanding difference between terms – vSwitch and vSwif.

I was hearing these questions agian and again – what is vswitch0 ? and what is vswif0 ? what is the difference between vswitch0 and vswif0 ? so i here is my attempt to answer their questions .In VMware ESX environment virtual switches are called as “vSwitch” where as vSwif is name assigned to Service console ports. When you finstall VMware ESX server on any x86 hardware with two or more network cards the ip address you first assign will be used for VMware service console port – vswif0 and the first network card will be used as physical uplink for the virtual switch vswitch0

In above picture you can see Physical network card which is used as uplink to virtual switch vswitch0. The Port used for VMware ESX Service console is called vswif0.