Some notes from a recent lab I configured:

My current lab looks like this - 

  1. I have few production VMs in one VLAN segment 
  2. External network access and Internet access is through another VLAN segment
  3. There is a jumpbox VM that is uplinked to both the VLAN segments.
  4. VMware vDS is currently being used and there are no free uplinks to make use of nvds.

What do I want to accomplish?
I want to NAT between vlan10 and vlan 0 using a nsx-t t0 edge.

So, lets see how we can accomplish this is in nsx-t

  1. After deploying NSX-T, begin by adding a compute manager in NSX-T.
    System->Fabric->Compute Managers->Add
  2. Create an overlay transport zone.
    System->Fabric->Transport Zone->Add
  3. Create an uplink profile for the overlay.
    System->Fabric->Profiles->Uplink Profiles->Add
    Ensure you specify the transport vlan that the overlay vteps should use here.
  4. Create a Transport Node Profile so we don’t have to configure each esxi host.
    System->Fabric->Profiles->Transport Node Profiles->Add
    You can choose to deploy a new N-VDS if you have free uplinks. I chose VDS.
    Choose the transport zone you created in Step 2 and the uplink profile in step 3.
    Also, choose how the vteps should get an ip address. You will need to create a static ip pool or use dhcp. Map the uplinks that the vteps should use for overlay traffic
  5. Configure NSX on the esxi hosts. System->Fabric->Nodes->Host Transport Nodes-> choose the cluster->configure NSX->Select the Transport Node profile you created in step 4.
  6. Create an uplink profile for the edge VM.
    System->Fabric->Profiles->Uplink Profiles->Add
  7. Create an Edge Cluster
    System->Fabric->Nodes->Edge Clusters->Add
  8. Deploy an Edge VM
    System->Fabric->Nodes->Edge transport Nodes->Add Edge VM
    Choose the overlay transport zone and the uplink profile created in step 6. Map the uplinks to relevant portgroups on your VDS.
  9. After the node status for the edge says “Up”, lets create a vlan transport zone for the logical segments We will use this vlan transport zone to map VLAN 10 and VLAN 0 in the next step.
    System->Fabric->Transport Zone->Add->Select VLAN
  10. Create two vlan segments. one for vlan 10 and the other for vlan 0 Networking->Segments->Add Segment.
    Just select the vlan transport zone and specify the vlan number
  11. Depoy a t0 router.
    Networking->Tier-0 Gateways->Add Gateway
    Select the edge cluster that we created in step 7.
  12. After the gateway is deployed, add both the interfaces.
    Networking->Tier-0 Gateways->edit the t0 router you deployed in Step 11->Interfaces->External and Service Interface->Add Interface
  • For vlan 0, choose Type as external, specify ip address and select the segment created in step 10
  • For vlan 10, choose Type as service, specify ip address and select the other segment created in step 10
  1. Now we will need to configure routing on the t0.
    Networking->Tier-0 Gateways->edit the t0 router you deployed in Step 11->Routing->Static Routes I just specified a route of  0.0.0.0/0 to the gateway on the vlan 0 subnet.
  2. The last thing to do is to create the SNAT rule. Networking->Network Services->NAT->Add NAT rule. Specify the source subnet and the translated IP. Now all the clients in VLAN 10 will be able to reach clients in VLAN 0