Category: VMware

NSX-T 3.0 in a HomeLab – Part 2: NSX-T 3.0 appliance install and configuration.


In this section we will go over mostly standard steps of installing NSX-T 3.0 appliance by deploying the downloaded ova on physical esxi host and select the datastore and network / portgroup for NSX-T management.

  • Select the downloaded NSX-T 3.0 OVA
  • select the name and folder
  • select the desired host | hw-esxi3 in my case (supermicro host)
  • Select the config size | extra small for lab /POC purposes only, though I went with small
  • Select the desired datastore | thin provision is acceptable for POC/labs.
  • Select the desired network | same a VCSA, nested and physical ESXi in this case.
  • fill in the required details in each section
  • admin, root password | hostname | GW | IP | DNS | DNS domain | NTP | SSH (if desired)
  • Review the filled in details and start the deployment
  • Once ova is deployed, powered up and ready| login with admin ID/Password
  • Accept EULA
  • Would recommed joinning CEIP but as this a lab I didnt
  • System > Appliances> Check Cluster health is stable.

As this is HomeLab and NSX-T is only deployed for hands-on mainly, I will not be deploying the three node cluster, which is a must when it comes to production environment.

Next in Part-3 we will look at adding the compute manager and creating TEP IP pool and Transport Zone.

NSX-T 3.0 in a HomeLab – Part 1: Physical & Nested ESXi setup and Network Overview.

Before we dive in NSX-T part, lets take a quick look at physical hosts and nested esxi hosts setup.

As seen above we have 3x physical host in one cluster (HW-Clu01) and 3x nested esxi hosts in cluster (nClu01) and all are connected to same vDSwitch for management.

HW-Clu01 hosts vcsa, 3x nested esxi vm’s, 2x test vm’s and will also host nsx-t manager and edge vm’s down the line.
All 6 hosts has access to same NFS datastore where the only test VMs are located for ease of this demo, though I did think of enabling vSAN services on nested hosts but will leave that detour for some other blog-post

Quick overview at vDS, nested esxi vm nic’s config and portgroups used for physical and nested host vmk’s and TEP.

Quick overview of subnets and vlans used for this demo.

Now that we are familiar with the playground and plan, next we will look at
part 2 NSX-T 3.0 appliances install and configuration.

NSX-T 3.0 in a HomeLab


Ever since VMUG added NSX-T to its offerings I have been meaning to get it deployed in my homelab and try it myself but due to limited cpu and memory resources was not able to, until recently.

There are some very great blogs out there explaining NSX-T while trying to recreate as close as possible to real world scenarios and thus very helpful too. However, in my case initially I just wanted to have an overlay network between physical and nested esxi hosts where 3 VMs in 3 logical different segments from NSX-T are able to communicate with each other.

I’m myself not able to answer the silent “but why?” that may follows but none the less I get my hands-on amazing product. Thanks to VMUG Advantage.

In short, all 3 physical host in my homelab has 1 nic (or more) for management and 1 nic for NSX which is patched to TEP VLAN on physical switch.
All 3 nested hosts has 2 nics for management and 2 nics for NSX, NSX nics which are connected to TEP VLAN on vDSwitch portgroup.
Aim is to have logical segment spanning across physical and nested hosts in two clusters in same vcenter server

I will go-over below in in upcoming sub-posts.

  1. Physical and nested ESXi setup and Network overview.
  2. NSX-T 3.0 appliances install and configuration.
  3. Creating TEP IP Pool and Transport Zone.
  4. Creating Uplink Profiles & Transport Node Profile ( 1x for physical hosts and 1x for nested hosts).
  5. Applying Transport Node Profile to nested and physical esxi hosts cluster.
  6. Adding Tier-1 Gateway.
  7. Creating Logical Segments and attach it to Tier-1 gateway.
  8. Connecting test VM to logical network | testing.