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Creating Network Labels

Select: Host > Settings > Network Labels

If VMware VirtualCenter manages the virtual machines on your VMware Server hosts, you must create labels for each virtual network adapter. VirtualCenter uses labels to identify which virtual network adapter is associated with which physical network.

Each virtual network adapter needs a label:

If the adapter has no label, VirtualCenter cannot recognize the adapter. If a virtual machine is configured for a network name that does not exist, the virtual network adapter is disconnected when you power on the virtual machine.

You can create labels for the existing default virtual network adapters — like VMnet0, the default bridged network adapter, or VMnet8, the default NAT adapter. You configure the adapters in VMware Server. You can configure new adapters with bridged, host-only, NAT or custom networking. The type of networking configuration is irrelevant to VirtualCenter. VirtualCenter is concerned with the network label only.

Note: If you intend to create and manage all your virtual machines on the VirtualCenter server, you should assign unique labels to each host-only adapter on a VMware Server host. This way, you can easily identify on which host each host-only network resides. However, if you have a VMware Server host where all the virtual machines use host-only networking, you could decide to not give the host-only adapter a network label.

For information on configuring new virtual network adapters, see Configuring a Network Adapter on page 9.

After your virtual network adapters are configured, create labels for each adapter so VirtualCenter can correctly manage the virtual machines on the host.

Creating Network Labels from the VMware Server Console

To create network labels for virtual machines managed by VirtualCenter, complete the following steps in a console.

  1. Connect to the VMware Server host with a console, and choose Host > Settings. The Host Settings dialog box appears.
  2. Click the Network Labels tab.

    Note: If the Network Labels tab does not appear in the Host Settings dialog box, the VMware Server host has not been discovered by VirtualCenter. For information on adding a VMware Server host to VirtualCenter, see your VirtualCenter documentation.

  3. To add a label, click Add. The Add Named Network dialog box appears.
  4. Select the virtual network adapter from the Adapter list. On a Windows host, if an adapter is configured for bridged, host-only or NAT networking, its networking type is indicated next to the adapter name.
  5. Enter the name of the label in the Label entry field.
  6. Click OK to add the label, then click OK to save your changes.

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