12-2
Cisco Nexus 1000V Troubleshooting Guide, Release 5.2(1)SV3(1.1)
OL-31593-01
Chapter 12 Layer 2 Switching
Port Model
Viewing Ports from the VEM
The Cisco Nexus1000V differentiates between virtual and physical ports on each of the VEMs.
Figure 12-1 shows how ports on the Cisco Nexus1000V switch are bound to physical and virtual
VMware ports within a VEM.
Figure 12-1 VEM View of Ports
On the virtual side of the switch, three layers of ports are mapped together:
• Virtual NICs—Three types of Virtual NICs are in VMware. The virtual NIC (vnic) is part of the VM
and represents the physical port of the host that is plugged into the switch. The virtual kernel NIC
(VTEP) is used by the hypervisor for management, VMotion, iSCSI, network file system (NFS), and
other network access needed by the kernel. This interface carries the IP address of the hypervisor
itself and is also bound to a virtual Ethernet port. The vswif (not shown) appears only in CoS-based
systems and is used as the VMware management port. Each type maps to a virtual Ethernet port
within the Cisco Nexus1000V.
• Virtual Ethernet Ports (VEth)—A vEth port is a port on the Cisco Nexus 1000V. The Cisco Nexus
1000V has a flat space of vEth ports 0..N. The virtual cable plugs into these vEth ports that are
moved to the host running the VM.
Virtual Ethernet ports are assigned to port groups.
• Local Virtual Ethernet Ports (lveth)—Each host has a number of local vEth ports. These ports are
dynamically selected for vEth ports that are needed on the host.
These local ports do not move and are addressable by the module/port number method.
VM-B
eth5/2
277344
VM-A
VEM 3 VEM 4 VEM 5
eth4/2 eth4/3
VSM
L2 Cloud
Upstream
Switch
eth5/3
eth3/2
eth3/3
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