VMware NSX Installation and Configuration Part 9-Adding a Distributed Logical Router

A distributed logical router (DLR) is a virtual appliance that contains the routing control plane, while distributing the data plane in kernel modules to each hypervisor host. The DLR control plane function relies on the NSX controller cluster to push routing updates to the kernel modules.

Procedure:

1 In the vSphere Web Client, navigate to Home > Networking & Security > NSX Edges.

2 Click the Add (+) icon.

3 Select Logical (Distributed) Router and type a name for the device. This name appears in your vCenter inventory. The name should be unique across all logical routers within a single tenant. Optionally, you can also enter a hostname. This name appears in the CLI. If you do not specify the host name, the Edge ID, which gets created automatically, is displayed in the CLI.

4 (Optional) Deploy an edge appliance. Deploy Edge Appliance is selected by default. An edge appliance (also called a logical router virtual appliance) is required for dynamic routing and the logical router appliance’s firewall, which applies to logical router pings, SSH access, and dynamic routing traffic. You can deselect the edge appliance option if you require only static routes, and do not want to deploy an Edge appliance. You cannot add an Edge appliance to the logical router after the logical router has been created.

5 (Optional) Enable High Availability. Enable High Availability is not selected by default. Select the Enable High Availability check box to enable and configure high availability. High availability is required if you are planning to do dynamic routing.

6 Type and re-type a password for the logical router

7 Configure interfaces. On logical routers, only IPv4 addressing is supported. In the HA Interface Configuration, if you selected Deploy NSX Edge you must connect the interface to a distributed port group. It is recommended to use a VXLAN logical switch for the HA interface. An IP address for each of the two NSX Edge appliances is chosen from the link local address space, 169.250.0.0/16. No further configuration is necessary to configure the HA service.