Limitations of LACP in VMware vSphere
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Limitations of LACP in VMware vSphere

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Article ID: 315347

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Updated On:

Products

VMware vCenter Server VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article describes the technical and support limitations of the Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) feature in vSphere Distributed Switches in vSphere.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 6.x
VMware vCenter Server 7.x
VMware vCenter Server 8.x

Resolution

LACP or Link Aggregation Control Protocol support on vSphere Distributed Switches allow multiple vmnics to be bonded using dynamic link aggregation. However, vSphere includes these LACP limitations:
  • LACP support is not compatible with software iSCSI multipathing. iSCSI multipathing should not be used with normal static etherchannels or with LACP bonds.
  • LACP configuration settings are not present in Host Profiles.
  • Running LACP inside any guest OS (including nested ESXi hosts) is not supported.
  • LACP cannot be used in conjunction with the ESXi dump collector. For this feature to work, the vmkernel port used for management purposes must be on a vSphere Standard Switch.
  • Port Mirroring cannot be used in conjunction with LACP to mirror LACPDU packets used for negotiation and control.
  • The teaming health check does not work for LAG ports as the LACP protocol itself is capable of ensuring the health of the individual LAG ports. However, VLAN and MTU health check can still check LAG ports.
  • The enhanced LACP support is limited to a single LAG to handle the traffic per distributed port (dvPortGroup) or port group.
  • You can create up to 64 LAGs on a distributed switch. A host can support up to 64 LAGs. However, the number of LAGs that you can actually use depends on the capabilities of the underlying physical environment and the topology of the virtual network. For example, if the physical switch supports up to four ports in an LACP port channel, you can connect up to four physical NICs per host to a LAG.
  • LACP is currently unsupported with SR-IOV.
  • As seen in the table below, Basic LACP (LACPv1) is only supported on vSphere versions 6.5 or below.  Upgrading ESXi to 7.0 may result in the physical switch disabling the LAG ports on ESXi hosts using Basic LACP.

LACP Compatibility with vDS

vCenter Server version

vDS version

Host version

Compatibility
vCenter Server 8.0 vDS 8.0/7.0/6.6 ESXi 8.0 Only supports LACP v2
vCenter Server 7.0 vDS 7.0/6.6/6.5 ESXi 7.0 Only supports LACP v2
vCenter Server 6.7 vDS 6.6/6.5/6.0 ESXi 6.7 Only supports LACP v2
vCenter Server 6.5 vDS 6.5/6.0/5.5/5.1/5.0 ESXi 6.5

LACPv1 supports 5.1

LACP v2 supports 5.5/6.0/6.5
vCenter Server 6.0 vDS 6.0/5.5/5.1/5.0 ESXi 6.0

LACPv1 supports 5.1

LACP v2 supports 5.5/6.0
vCenter Server 5.5 vDS 5.5 ESXi 5.5 LACP v1 and v2 can be configured.
vCenter Server 5.5 vDS 5.5 ESXi 5.1 ESXi 5.1 or older hosts can be added to vCenter Server 5.5, but cannot be added to vDS 5.5.
vCenter Server 5.5 vDS 5.1 ESXi 5.1 vCenter Server 5.5 can create a vDS 5.1 and add an ESXi 5.1 host to it.
vCenter Server 5.5 can configure LACP v1 on a 5.1 vDS.
vCenter Server 5.5 vDS 5.1 ESXi 5.5 ESXi 5.5 host can be added to vDS 5.1. Supports LACP v1 only.
vCenter Server 5.5 vDS versions prior to 5.1 ESXi 5.1 LACP feature is not supported.
vCenter Server 5.1 or earlier vDS 5.1 or earlier version ESXi 5.5 ESXi 5.5 host cannot be added to vCenter Server 5.1 or earlier versions.

 

Note:

  • v1 represents the LACP version introduced in vSphere 5.1 and v2 represents Enhanced LACP introduced in vSphere 5.5.
  • For all vDS versions, LACPv1 to LACPv2 upgrades should be performed prior to upgrading the vDS itself.
  • Upgrading LACP from v1 to v2 is an automated two-step process which may result in a transient connectivity issue. So, the Management vmknic (i.e. vmk0) should be migrated to another vDS or vSS prior to the upgrade.



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