VMware and RBridge

Running a RBridge registry on VMware

In that case there’s nothing special to consider. RBridge running in registry mode is a normal “user land” UDP server binding on port 439 per default.

RBridge in bridging mode

There are two things to consider when you run RBridge in bridging mode:

vSphere Standard Switch settings

The VM running RBridge needs promiscuous mode permissions and the permission to inject arbitrary packets into the LAN. The procedure to allow this is as follows:

  • Log in to the vSphere Client and select the server from the inventory panel.
  • Click the Configuration tab and click Networking.
  • Click Properties for the standard switch whose Layer 2 Security policy you want to edit.
  • In the Properties dialog box for the standard switch, click the Ports tab.
  • Select the standard switch item and click Edit.
  • Click the Security tab.
  • In the Policy Exceptions pane, set “Promiscuous Mode” to “Accept”, “MAC Address Changes” to “Accept” and “Forged Transmits” to “Accept”.

Assign a static MAC Address in the vSphere Client

The MAC address of the interface which an RBridge peer is listening on (interface parameter) should stay the same for the RBridge licensing to stay valid in all cases.

If you want to guarantee that the same MAC address is assigned to a given virtual machine every time, even if the virtual machine is moved, or if you want to guarantee a unique MAC address for each virtual machine within a networked environment, you can assign the address manually instead of allowing VMware Workstation to assign it automatically.

For information about this please check out this VMware document: Manually Assigning a MAC Address