Creating/configuring/removing virtual adapters

The VMkernel virtual adapters (vmk#) are used by the ESXi networking layer to provide connectivity to hosts and manage some core services such as the management of traffic, vSphere vMotion, fault tolerance, IP storage, vSAN, and so on.

You can migrate existing VMkernel adapters when you are adding hosts to a vDS.

But you can also easily create new adapters with the vSphere Web Client. In the Host and Clusters inventory, select the desired host, then, in the Configure tab, choose the VMkernel adapters menu (in the Networking section).

Here, you can check the existing adapters or create a new one:

1. Click on the Add host networking icon.
2. In the Select connection type menu, confirm the VMkernel Network Adapter option and click on Next.
3. In the Select target device menu, choose the desired dvPort on a vDS (it's also valid for vSS) and click on Next.

4. In the Port properties menu, define the network configuration you need (IPv4, IPv6, or IPv4 and IPv6), the TCP/IP stack (for more information about TCP/IP stack, see the Creating and configuring custom TCP/IP Stacks section) that should be used, and the type of services enabled on this new VMkernel adapter:

There are different types of services that can be provided by different types of VMkernel interfaces:

    
          
Type of service           Type of VMkernel           Description
        
          
Management traffic           Management           On this interface flows the management traffic between the host and vCenter Server. By default, a Manager VMkernel adapter is created during the ESXi installation. Usually, this interface is also used by vSphere HA.

          Note that it's possible to add other VMkernel adapters for management traffic (it's one possible way to provide redundancy to this function).
        
          
Provisioning traffic           Provisioning           On this interface flows the data transferred for virtual machine cold migration, cloning, and snapshot migration.
        
          
vMotion traffic           vMotion           On this interface flows the vMotion traffic during the live migration of VMs across hosts. If this property is not enabled for any VMkernel adapter, migration with vMotion to the selected host is not possible.

          Note that it's possible to have multiple vMotion interfaces to improve bandwidth and throughput.
        
          
Fault tolerance traffic           Fault tolerance logging           On this interface flows the fault tolerance logging traffic used by the vSphere FT feature.

          Note that you can have only one VMkernel adapter for FT traffic per host.
        
          
Storage traffic           -           IP-based storage traffic, such as NFS or iSCSI, can use one or more VMkernel interface.

          Note that there isn't a specific type for those kinds of traffic.
        
          
vSAN traffic           vSAN           This interface enables vSAN traffic on the host. In a vSAN cluster, this interface is mandatory, and it will also be used for vSphere HA.
        
          
vSphere Replibe usedon traffic           vSphere Replication           This interface manages the outgoing replication data that is sent from the source ESXi host to the vSphere Replication server.
        
          
vSphere Replication NFC traffic           vSphere Replication NFC           This interface manages the incoming replication data on the target replication site.
        
  

As described later, there are also different TCP/IP stacks available with different settings for different VMkernel interfaces.

For more information, see the vSphere 6.5 Networking guide (https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.5/com.vmware.vsphere.networking.doc/GUID-8244BA51-BD0F-424E-A00E-DDEC21CF280A.html).