portgroup

Specifies the port group configured on the host.

The following table contains the definitions of the child elements of <portgrp>:

Child elements of <portgrp>

Element

Definition

Required

<name>

Specifies the name of the port group

Yes

<vlan-id>

Specifies the VLAN ID for ports using this port group

Valid values:

  • 0: Specifies that you do not want the port group associated with a VLAN
  • 1 to 4094: Specifies a VLAN ID for the port group
  • 4095: Specifies that the port group should use trunk mode that allows the guest operating system to manage its own VLAN tags

Yes

<v-switch-name>

Identifies the virtual switch on which this port group is located

Yes

<policy>

Contains the elements required for specifying various virtual port group polices

Yes

<security>

Contains the following elements required for specifying the security policy:

  • <allow-promiscuous>
  • <mac-changes>
  • <forged-transmits>

Yes

<allow-promiscuous>

Indicates whether all traffic is seen on the port

Valid values: true, false

Yes

<mac-changes>

Indicates whether the Media Access Control (MAC) address can be changed

Valid values: true, false

Yes

<forged-transmits>

Indicates whether the virtual network adapter should be allowed to send network traffic with a different MAC address from that of the virtual network adapter

Valid values: true, false

Yes

<nic-teaming>

Contains the following elements required for specifying the network adapter teaming policy:

  • <policy>
  • <reverse-policy>
  • <notify-switches>
  • <rolling-order>
  • <failure-criteria>
  • check-speed>
  • <speed>
  • <check-duplex>
  • <full-duplex>
  • <check-error-percent>
  • <percentage>
  • <check-beacon>
  • <nic-order> and its child elements

No

<policy>

Specifies the network adapter teaming, failover, and load-balancing policies

Valid values:

  • loadbalance_ip: Route based on IP hash
  • loadbalance_srcmac: Route based on source MAC hash
  • loadbalance_srcid: Route based on the source of the port ID
  • failover_explicit: Route based on explicit failover order

Conditional; required only if the type of the network adapter bridge is BondBridge

<reverse-policy>

Indicates whether the teaming policy is applied to inbound frames

Example: If the policy is explicit failover, a broadcast request goes through uplink1 and comes back through uplink2. If the reverse policy is set, the frame is dropped when it is received from uplink2. This reverse policy is useful to prevent the virtual machine from getting reflections.

Valid values: true, false

No

<notify-switches>

Indicates whether to notify the physical switch when a link fails

Valid values: true, false

If the <notify-switches> property is true, the ESX server does not respond to the failure by sending a Reverse Address Resolution Protocol (RARP) packet from a different physical adapter, causing the switch to update its cache.

No

<rolling-order>

Indicates whether to use a rolling policy when restoring links

Example: Assume that the explicit link order is vmnic9, vmnic0, so when vmnic9 goes down, vmnic0 comes up. However, when vmnic9 comes up, if the value of the <rolling-order> element is true, vmnic0 continues to be used; otherwise, vmnic9 is restored as specified in the explicit order.

Valid values: true, false

No

<failure-criteria>

Contains the elements that can be specified during link failures

No; required only if the type of the network adapter bridge is BondBridge

<check-speed>

Specifies the configured speed type to use while detecting link failure

Valid values:

  • exact: Use exact speed to detect link failure.
  • minimum: Use minimum speed to detect failure.
  • empty string: Do not use link speed to detect failure.

No

<speed>

Specifies the speed used to detect link failures

No

<check-duplex>

Indicates whether to use the link duplex reported by the driver as link selection criteria

  • If <check-duplex> is true, <full-duplex> is the configured duplex mode. The link is considered bad if the link duplex reported by the driver is not the same as <full-duplex>.
  • If <check-duplex> is false, <full-duplex> is unused, and the link duplex is not used as a detection method.

No

<full-duplex>

Specifies whether to use the link in duplex mode

Valid values: true, false

No

<check-error-percent>

Indicates whether to use link error percentage to detect failure

Valid values: true, false

  • If <check-error-percent> is true, <percentage> is the configured error percentage that is tolerated. The link is considered bad if the error rate exceeds <percentage>.
  • If <check-error-percent> is false, <percentage> is unused, and the error percentage is not used as a detection method.

No

<percentage>

Specifies the link error percentage

No

<check-beacon>

Indicates whether to enable beacon probing as a method to validate the link status of a physical network adapter

Valid values: true, false

<check-beacon> can be enabled only if the virtual switch has been configured to use the beacon; otherwise, an error occurs.

Conditional

<nic-order>

Specifies the order for the active and standby network adapters that are used for load balancing; contains the following elements:

  • <active-nic-list>
  • <active-nic>
  • <standby-nic-list>
  • <standby-nic>
  • <standby-nic>

No

<active-nic-list>

Contains the list of active network adapters used for load balancing

No

<active-nic>

Specifies the active network adapters used for load balancing

No

<standby-nic-list>

Contains the list of standby network adapters used for load balancing

No

<standby-nic>

Specifies the standby network adapters used for failover

No

<offload-policy>

Specifies the policies that are used to optimize virtual machine network performance; contains the following elements:

  • <csum-offload>
  • <tcp-segmentation>
  • <zero-copy-xmit>

No

<csum-offload>

Indicates whether checksum offloading is supported

Valid values: true, false

No

<tcp-segmentation>

Indicate whether TCP segmentation offloading (TSO) is supported

Valid values: true, false

No

<zero-copy-xmit>

Indicates whether zero copy transmits are supported

Valid values: true, false

No

<shaping-policy>

Specifies the traffic shaping policy; contains the following elements:

  • <enabled>
  • <average-bandwidth>
  • <peak-bandwidth>
  • <burst-size>

No

<enabled>

Indicates whether traffic shaping is enabled on the port

Valid values: true, false

No

<average-bandwidth>

Specifies the average bandwidth in bits per second, if shaping is enabled on the port

No

<peak-bandwidth>

Specifies the peak bandwidth during bursts in bits per second, if traffic shaping is enabled on the port

No

<burst-size>

Specifies the maximum burst size allowed in bytes, if shaping is enabled on the port

No

The following figure shows an XML sample for <portgrp>:

XML sample for <portgrp>

<portgrp>
 <name></name>
    <policy>
      <security>
        <allow-promiscuous></allow-promiscuous>
        <mac-changes></mac-changes>
        <forged-transmits></forged-transmits>
    </security>
    <nic-teaming>
      <policy></policy>
      <reverse-policy></reverse-policy>
      <notify-switches></notify-switches>
      <rolling-order></rolling-order>
      <failure-criteria>
        <check-speed></check-speed>
        <speed></speed>
        <check-duplex></check-duplex>
        <full-duplex></full-duplex>
        <check-error-percent></check-error-percent>
        <percentage></percentage>
        <check-beacon></check-beacon>
      </failure-criteria>
      <nic-order>
        <active-nic-list>
          <active-nic></active-nic>
          <active-nic></active-nic>
        </active-nic-list>
        <standby-nic-list>
          <standby-nic></standby-nic>
          <standby-nic></standby-nic>
        </standby-nic-list>
      </nic-order>
   </nic-teaming>
    <offload-policy>
      <csum-offload></csum-offload>
      <tcp-segmentation></tcp-segmentation>
      <zero-copy-xmit></zero-copy-xmit>
    </offload-policy>
    <shaping-policy>
      <enabled></enabled>
      <average-bandwidth></average-bandwidth>
      <peak-bandwidth></peak-bandwidth>
      <burst-size></burst-size>
    </shaping-policy>
  </policy>
</spec>
</portgrp>

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