XG and VLAN under Hyper-V or vSphere

Question

Hello, 
 I am Home User and I am running XG in a virtualized environment with VLAN network structure. I am running Hyper-V 2016 but my question is generic and also refers to Vsphere that I was running before migration to Hyper-V. The physical Box has two NIC where one is dedicated to WAN (PPPoE) and the other one is a VLAN connecting several internal networks (LAN, WLAN, DMZ) in Hyper-V as well physical ones connected via VLAN capable physical switch. 
 What is the better way for VLAN set-up to XG in virtualized environment (Hyper-V)? 
 
 creating e separate virtual NIC on Hyper-V and doing VLAN tagging on Hyper-V switch? 
 having only one virtual NIC on Hyper-V and doing VLAN tagging on XG by creating VLAN network interfaces for each network 
 
 Technically both is possible. But what are the advantages or disadvantages between both ways? 
 Thanks.

jamesharper · Accepted Answer

My preference is the second option - one virtual NIC on Hyper-V and trunk everything over that. Especially if your Hyper-V only has the one physical adapter (like my Intel NUC). 
 There area few limitations under XG that make this less than ideal for your WAN interface though (I can't tell from your post if you want to combine the WAN interface as a VLAN in the new setup): 
 
 When doing initial config, XG assumes you have a LAN and a WAN interface and while it's possible to get through the registration/synchronisation process with a bit of creativity, it's a pain 
 MTU is set on the physical NIC, so if you need to set a lower MTU on an interface (common for a WAN interface if it's PPPoE) you won't be able to. You can't even set an MSS mangle rule. 
 
 The disadvantages for splitting out all the VLAN's into separate virtual NIC's are: 
 
 Adding a new VLAN to your network later is harder. A reboot is probably required after adding the virtual NIC to get XG to recognise it (i'm guessing - i've not tested this) 
 There is a limit to the number of virtual NIC's you can have in a VM. It was 8 in previous editions of Hyper-V, and i've not heard that it has increased. 
 
 I'd go with 1 virtual interface for each WAN link, and 1 for everything else. 
 James

lferrara · Answer

Tobias, 
 for WAN, a dedicated physical NIC is recommende (as Ian suggested). 
 For VLAN, create a virtual switch and then tag all the vlan on it and create each VLAN interface on XG too for inter-vlan traffic monitoring. 
 Regards