VLAN Transport Zone segments are not shown in the output of nsxcli commands on NSX Manager

Products

• VMware NSX

Issue/Introduction

When querying objects from NSX manager CLI, commands such as "get logical-switches" in Manager mode and "get segments" in Policy mode do not contain any objects that are associated with VLAN Transport Zones. 

When viewing the NSX UI or using API call such as GET /api/v1/logical-switches will show both VLAN-backed and Overlay segments/logical-switches. 

Logical Switches and Segments are referencing to the same objects, the naming difference is from which NSX mode is used to view/create such object. 

For explanation of difference between the Manager mode versus Policy mode, please check here: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX-T-Data-Center/3.2/administration/GUID-BB26CDC8-2A90-4C7E-9331-643D13FEEC4A.html#GUID-BB26CDC8-2A90-4C7E-9331-643D13FEEC4A 

Environment

VMware NSX-T 3.x and VMware NSX 4.x

Cause

NSX CLI has similar if not identical commands available in different planes, such as controller, Edge, and ESXi host. Although similarity to the commands available in different planes, the nsxcli can retrieve or display different results. NSX manager nsxcli will only retrieve segments/logical-switches associated with an overlay transport zone. The equivalent commands can be used on the Edge and ESXi host to retrieve both overlay and VLAN-backed segments/logical-switches. 

Resolution

This is working as intended. The UI and API calls give you a holistic view of objects that can be managed by NSX.

To view the all segments/logical-switches from a command line, please use nsxcli available on the NSX edge or NSX prepared ESXi host.