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Networking Overview

Before you can deploy virtual machines, you need to set up networking. Networking in Gallium Standalone connects your VMs to your physical network through two building blocks: adapter groups and networks.

How Networking Fits Together​

Networking is organized as a chain from your server's physical hardware through to your virtual machines:

Physical Adapters  →  Adapter Groups  →  Networks  →  Virtual Machines

Physical adapters are the network interface cards (NICs) in your server. You assign them to adapter groups to make them available for VM networking.

Adapter groups are logical groupings of one or two physical adapters. When two adapters are assigned to a group, they operate in an active/failover configuration — if one adapter fails, traffic automatically switches to the other. Each adapter group can host multiple networks.

Networks are what your virtual machines connect to. Each network belongs to one adapter group and is either tagged with a specific VLAN ID or untagged. When you create a VM and add a network adapter to it, you select which network it connects to.

Adapter Groups​

An adapter group bundles one or two physical NICs together to provide the underlying connectivity that networks use. If two adapters are assigned, one is active and the other is a standby failover.

You must create at least one adapter group and assign physical adapters to it before you can create any networks.

Networks​

A network is what you connect a virtual machine to. There are two types:

VLAN — A tagged network using the 802.1q standard. Each VLAN network has an ID between 2 and 4094 that corresponds to a VLAN on your physical network switch. Use this when your switch ports are configured as trunks carrying tagged traffic.

Untagged — A network that uses the native (untagged) VLAN on the physical switch port. Only one untagged network is allowed per adapter group.

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If your physical network does not use VLANs, choose Untagged when creating a network.

Quick Start​

To get a virtual machine connected to the network:

  1. Create an adapter group and assign at least one physical adapter to it. See Adapter Groups.
  2. Create a network on that adapter group. See Networks.
  3. When creating a VM, attach its network adapter to the network.