A few people have been talking about this lately, and what it actually means. Within the vSphere 4.1 U1 release notes the following statement has been made:
- Memory problems occur when a host uses more than 1016 dvPorts on a vDS * Although the maximum number of allowed dvPorts per host on vDS is 4096, memory problems can start occurring when the number of dvPorts for a host approaches 1016. When this occurs, you cannot add virtual machines or virtual adapters to the vDS. Workaround: Configure a maximum of 1016 dvPorts per host on a vDS.
So what does this mean exactly? If a portgroup is created with 2000 dvPorts, how would this be created on a host? Would it create 2000 dvPorts for every host in the vDS? The Answer is NO. A host will only have the maximum number of configured proxy ports, which by default is 256. Proxy ports are used to map to one of the vDS ports when a VM is running on that host. If you run out of proxy ports you will not be able to add more VMs to the vDS on that host.
A good point to note is that if you run out of vDS Proxy Ports then you are likely to get this kind of error “Virtual NIC with hardware address 00:1D:09:09:9B:E9 failed to connect to distributed virtual port 2 on switch 74 65 73 74 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01. No more ports available on the host proxy switch.” This KB article provides a bit more in depth content how to resolve this issue.
It has been mentioned that you might be able to change the Proxy Port default option through the UI, but I have yet been unable to find this setting. If I do I will update the article.
Have you been able to find the proxy port setting to increase the number of ports available on each host? I am currently running into the same issue in my environment with virtual desktops.
Thanks,
Facing the same / similar issue here … so do we know if the MaxPorts setting controls the proxy port count or is it a different setting?? Is this is set on a per-host or per-dvs basis???
As for the KB article workaround – bloody useless in a vSphere cluster! grr…..
Cheers!