Which type of virtual switch creates a virtual switch that binds to the physical network adapter?

A. A network adapter is the physical network card in the Hyper-V host that connects to physical networks. A virtual switch is a network you create within Hyper-V. The virtual switch connects to virtual NICs that you add to VMs. A virtual switch can be bound to a physical NIC, allowing VMs that have their virtual NICs connected to the virtual switch to access physical networks through the NIC. The network formed by the virtual switch and physical NICs is called an external virtual network.

It's also possible to have virtual switches that don't bind to physical network cards. This type of switch can only be used by VMs to communicate with one another (and possibly the Hyper-V host, depending on the type of switch). This is an internal or private virtual network, depending on if the host has access to the switch.

The different types of virtual networks are illustrated here.

Which type of virtual switch creates a virtual switch that binds to the physical network adapter?

Click to expand.

So should each VM have its own virtual switch? The answer depends on the network load and security requirements of the guest. For example, if I had a VM that was creating a huge amount of network traffic, I would probably create a separate virtual switch for that VM that is bound to a physical NIC of its own on the Hyper-V host. Giving it a NIC of its own would ensure that the VM had dedicated network bandwidth.

You can tag virtual switches with Virtual LAN (VLAN) tags, so you may want to create separate virtual switches for the purposes of VLAN. You can also create multiple virtual switches that don't bind to a physical NIC for different guest-to-guest and guest-to-host communication purposes.

Generally, you won't create a separate virtual switch for each guest. Instead, you'll allow them to share a virtual switch, and therefore share a physical NIC. Your exact requirements and load may dictate a different arrangement.

Related Reading:

  • Q. Why shouldn't I share the management NIC on Hyper-V with virtual machines (VMs)?
  • Q. How can I tell how much CPU a guest OS is using from the host OS with Hyper-V?
  • Free Virtualization Platforms
  • Q. What is the processor compatibility setting in Hyper-V R2?

Which type of virtual switch creates a virtual switch that binds to the physical network adapter?

Check out hundreds more useful Q&As like this in John Savill's FAQ for Windows. Also, watch instructional videos made by John at ITTV.net.

Note: This article was originally published in June 2018. It has been fully updated to be current as of September 2019.

Networking in Hyper-V commonly confuses newcomers, even those with experience in other hypervisors. The Hyper-V virtual switch presents one of the product’s steeper initial conceptual hurdles. Fortunately, once you invest the time to learn about it, you will find it quite simple. Digesting this article will provide the necessary knowledge to properly plan a Hyper-V virtual switch and understand how it will operate in production. If you know all about the Hyper-V virtual switch and you can skip to a guide on how to create one.

For an overall guide to Hyper-V networking read my post titled “The Complete Guide to Hyper-V Networking“.

A side note on System Center Virtual Machine Manager: I will not spend any time in this article on network configuration for SCVMM. Because that product needlessly over-complicates the situation with multiple pointless layers, the solid grounding on the Hyper-V virtual switch that can be obtained from this article is absolutely critical if you don’t want to be hopelessly lost in VMM.

The very first thing that you must understand is that Hyper-V’s virtual switch is truly a virtual switch. That is to say, it is a software construct operating within the active memory of a Hyper-V host that performs Ethernet frame switching functionality. It can use single or teamed physical network adapters to serve as uplinks to a physical switch in order to communicate with other computers on the physical network. Hyper-V provides virtual network adapters to its virtual machines, and those communicate directly with the virtual switch.

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What are Virtual Network Adapters?

Like the Hyper-V virtual switch, virtual network adapters are mostly self-explanatory. In more detail, they are software constructs that are responsible for receiving and transmitting Ethernet frames into and out of their assigned virtual machine or the management operating system. This article focuses on the virtual switch, so I will only be giving the virtual adapters enough attention to ensure understanding of the switch.

Virtual Machine Network Adapters

The most common virtual network adapters belong to virtual machines. They can be seen in both PowerShell (Get-VMNetworkAdapter) and in Hyper-V Manager’s GUI. The screenshot below is an example:

Which type of virtual switch creates a virtual switch that binds to the physical network adapter?

Example Virtual Adapter

I have drawn a red box on the left where the adapter appears in the hardware list. On the right, I have drawn another to show the virtual switch that this particular adapter connects to. You can change it at any time to any other virtual switch on the host or “Not Connected”, which is the virtual equivalent of leaving the adapter unplugged. There is no virtual equivalent of a “crossover” cable, so you cannot directly connect one virtual adapter to another.

Within a guest, virtual adapters appear in all the same places as a physical adapter.

Which type of virtual switch creates a virtual switch that binds to the physical network adapter?

Virtual Adapter from Within a Guest

Management Operating System Virtual Adapters

You can also create virtual adapters for use by the management operating system. You can see them in PowerShell and in the same locations that you’d find a physical adapter. The system will assign them names that follow the pattern vEthernet ().

Which type of virtual switch creates a virtual switch that binds to the physical network adapter?

Virtual Adapters in the Management Operating System

In contrast to virtual adapters for virtual machines, your options for managing virtual adapters in the management operating system are a bit limited. If you only have one, you can use Hyper-V Manager’s virtual network manager to set the VLAN. If you have multiple, as I do, you can’t even do that in the GUI:

Which type of virtual switch creates a virtual switch that binds to the physical network adapter?

Virtual Switch Manager with Multiple Host Virtual Network Adapters

PowerShell is the only option for control in this case. PowerShell is also the only way to view or modify a number of management OS virtual adapter settings. All of that, however, is a topic for another article.

Modes for the Hyper-V Virtual Switch

The Hyper-V virtual switch presents three different operational modes.

Private Virtual Switch

A Hyper-V virtual switch in private mode allows communications only between virtual adapters connected to virtual machines.

Internal Virtual Switch

A Hyper-V virtual switch in internal mode allows communications only between virtual adapters connected to virtual machines and the management operating system.

External Virtual Switch

A Hyper-V virtual switch in external mode allows communications between virtual adapters connected to virtual machines and the management operating system. It uses single or teamed physical adapters to connect to a physical switch, thereby allowing communications with other systems.

Deeper Explanation of the Hyper-V Switch Modes

The private and internal switch types only differ by the absence or presence of a virtual adapter for the management operating system, respectively. In fact, you can turn an internal switch into a private switch just by removing any virtual adapters for the management operating system and vice versa:

Which type of virtual switch creates a virtual switch that binds to the physical network adapter?

Convert Internal Virtual Switch to Private

With both the Internal and Private virtual switches, adapters can only communicate with other adapters on the same switch. If you need them to be able to talk to adapters on other switches, one of the operating systems will need to have adapters on other switches and be configured as a router.

The external virtual switch relies on one or more physical adapters. These adapters act as an uplink to the rest of your physical network. Like the internal and private switches, virtual adapters on an external switch cannot directly communicate with adapters on any other virtual switch.

Important Note: the terms Private and External for the Hyper-V switch are commonly confused with private and public IP addresses. They have nothing in common.

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Conceptualizing the External Virtual Switch

Part of what makes understanding the external virtual switch difficult is the way that the related settings are worded. In the Hyper-V Manager GUI, it says Allow management operating system to share this network adapter. In the PowerShell New-VMSwitch, there’s an -AllowManagementOS boolean parameter which is no better, and its description — “Specifies whether the parent partition (i.e. the management operating system) is to have access to the physical NIC bound to the virtual switch to be created.” — makes it worse. What happens far too often is that people read these and think of them like this:

Which type of virtual switch creates a virtual switch that binds to the physical network adapter?

Incorrect Visualization of the Hyper-V Virtual Switch

The number one most important thing to understand is that a physical adapter or team used by a Hyper-V virtual switch is not, and cannot be, used for anything else. The adapter is not “shared” with anything. You cannot configure TCP/IP information on it. After the Hyper-V virtual switch is bound to an adapter or team (it will appear as Hyper-V Extensible Virtual Switch), tinkering with any other clients, protocols, or services on that adapter will at best have no effect and at worst break your virtual switch.

Instead of the above, what really happens when you “share” the adapter is this:

Which type of virtual switch creates a virtual switch that binds to the physical network adapter?

Correct Visualization of the External Hyper-V Virtual Switch

The so-called “sharing” happens by creating a virtual adapter for the management operating system and attaching it to the same virtual switch that the virtual machines will use. You can add or remove this adapter at any time without impacting the virtual switch at all. I see many, many people creating virtual adapters for the management operating system by clicking that Allow management operating system to share this network adapter checkbox because they believe it’s the only way to get the virtual switch to participate in the network for the virtual machines. If that’s you, don’t feel bad. I did the very same thing on my first 2008 R2 deployment. It’s OK to blame the crummy wording in the tools because that is exactly what threw me off as well. The only reason to check the box is if you need the management operating system to be able to communicate directly with the virtual machines on the created virtual switch or with the physical network connected to the particular physical adapter or team that hosts the virtual switch. If you’re going to use a separate, dedicated physical adapter or team just for management traffic, then don’t use the “share” option. If you’re going to use network convergence, that’s when you want to “share” it.

If you’re not certain what to do in the beginning, it doesn’t really matter. You can always add or remove virtual adapters after the switch is created. Personally, I never create an adapter on the virtual switch by using the Allow… checkbox or the -AllowManagementOS parameter. I always use PowerShell to create any necessary virtual adapters afterward. I have my own reasons for doing so, but it also helps with any conceptual issues.

Once you understand the above, you can easily see that the differences even between the external and internal switch types are not very large. Look at all three types visualized side-by-side:

Which type of virtual switch creates a virtual switch that binds to the physical network adapter?

Side-by-side Visualization of All Switch Modes

I don’t recommend it, but it is possible to convert any Hyper-V virtual switch to/from the external type by adding or removing the physical adapter/team.

What are the Features of the Hyper-V Virtual Switch?

The Hyper-V virtual switch exposes several features natively.

  • Ethernet Frame Switching
    The Hyper-V virtual switch is able to read the MAC addresses in an Ethernet packet and deliver it to the correct destination if it is present on the virtual switch. It is aware of the MAC addresses of all virtual network adapters attached to it. An external virtual switch also knows about the MAC addresses on any layer-2 networks that it has visibility to via its assigned physical adapter or team. The Hyper-V virtual switch does not have any native routing (layer 3) capability. You will need to provide a hardware or software router if you need that type of functionality. Windows 10 and Server 2016 did introduce some NAT capabilities. Get started on the docs site.
  • 802.1q VLAN, Access Mode
    Virtual adapters for both the management operating system and virtual machines can be assigned to a VLAN. It will only deliver Ethernet frames to virtual adapters within the same VLAN, just like a physical switch. If trunking is properly configured on the connected physical switch port, VLAN traffic will extend to the physical network as expected. You do NOT need to configure multiple virtual switches; every Hyper-V virtual switch automatically allows untagged frames and all VLANs from 1-4096.
  • 802.1q VLAN, Trunk Mode
    First, I want to point out that more than 90% of the people that try to configure Hyper-V in trunk mode do not need trunk mode. This setting applies only to individual network adapters. When you configure a virtual adapter in trunk mode, Hyper-V will pass allowed frames with the 802.1q tag intact. If software in the virtual machine does not know how to process frames with those tags, the virtual machine’s operating system will treat the frames as malformed and drop them. Very few software applications can even interact with the network adapters at a point where they see the tag. Not even Microsoft’s Routing and Remote Access Service can do it. If you want a virtual machine to have a layer 3 endpoint presence in multiple VLANs, then you need to use individual adapters in access mode, not trunk mode.
  • 802.1p Quality of Service
    802.1p uses a special part of the Ethernet frame to mark traffic as belonging to a particular priority group. All switches along the line that can speak 802.1p will then prioritize it appropriately.
  • Hyper-V Quality of Service
    Hyper-V has its own quality of service for its virtual switch, but, unlike 802.1p, it does not extend to the physical network. You can guarantee a minimum and/or limit the outbound speed of a virtual adapter when your virtual switch is in Absolute mode and you can guarantee a minimum and/or lock a maximum outbound speed for an adapter when your switch is in Weight mode. The mode must be selected when the virtual switch is created. Use this when you need some level of QoS but your physical infrastructure does not support 802.1p.
  • SR-IOV (Single Root I/O Virtualization)
    SR-IOV requires compatible hardware, both on your motherboard and physical network adapter(s). When enabled, you will have the option to connect a limited number of virtual adapters directly to Virtual Functions — special constructs exposed by your physical network adapters. The Hyper-V virtual switch has only very minimal participation in any IOV functions, meaning that you will have access to very nearly the full speed of the hardware. This performance boost does come at a cost, however: SR-IOV network adapters cannot function if the virtual switch is assigned to an LBFO adapter team. It will work with the new Switch-Embedded Team that shipped with 2016 (not all manufacturers and not all adapters, though).
  • Extensibility
    Microsoft publishes an API that anyone can use to make their own filter drivers for the Hyper-V virtual switch. For instance, System Center Virtual Machine Manager provides a driver that enables Hardware Network Virtualization (HNV). Other possibilities include network scanning tools.

Why Would I Use an Internal or Private Virtual Switch?

There is exactly one reason to use an internal or private virtual switch: isolation. You can be absolutely certain that no traffic that moves on an internal or private switch will ever leave the host. You can partially isolate guests by placing a VM with routing capabilities on the isolation network(s) and an external switch. You can look at the first diagram on my software router post to get an idea of what I’m talking about.

Internal and private virtual switches do not provide a performance boost over the external virtual switch. This is because the virtual switch is smart enough to not use the physical network when delivering packets from one virtual adapter to the MAC address of another virtual adapter on the same virtual switch. However, if layer 3 traffic requires traffic to pass through an external router, traffic might leave the host before returning.

The following illustrates communications between two virtual adapters on the same external virtual switch within the same subnet:

Which type of virtual switch creates a virtual switch that binds to the physical network adapter?

Virtual Network Adapters on the same Subnet

If the virtual adapters are on different subnets and the router sits on the physical network, this is what happens:

Which type of virtual switch creates a virtual switch that binds to the physical network adapter?

Virtual Adapters on Different Subnets

What’s happened in this second scenario is that the virtual adapters are using IP addresses that belong to different subnets. Because of the way that TCP/IP works (not the virtual switch!), packets between these two adapters must be transmitted through a router. Remember that the Hyper-V virtual switch is a layer 2 device that does not perform routing; it is not aware of IP addresses. If the way that Ethernet and IP work are new to you, or you need a refresher, I’ve got an article about it.

How Does Teaming Impact the Virtual Switch?

There are a great many ifs, ands, and buts involved when discussing the virtual switch and network adapter teams. The most important points:

  • Bandwidth aggregation does not occur the way that most people think it does.
    I see this sort of complaint a lot: “I teamed 6 1GbE NICs for my Hyper-V team and then a copied a file from a virtual machine to my file server and it didn’t go at 6Gbps and now I’m really mad at Hyper-V!” There are three problems. First, file copy is not a network speed testing tool in any sense. Second, that individual probably doesn’t have a hard disk subsystem at one end or the other that can sustain 6Gbps anyway. Third, Ethernet and TCP/IP don’t work that way, nevermind the speed of the disks or the Hyper-V virtual switch. If you want a visualization for why teaming won’t make a file copy go faster, this older post has a nice explanatory picture. I have a more recent article with a more in-depth technical description. The TL;DR summary: using adapter teaming for the Hyper-V virtual switch improves performance for all virtual adapters in aggregate, not at an individual level.
  • Almost everyone overestimates how much network performance they need. Seriously, file copy isn’t just a bad testing tool, it also sets unrealistic expectations. Your average user doesn’t sit around copying multi-gigabyte files all day long. They mostly move a few bits here and there and watch streaming 1.2mbps videos of cats.
  • Using faster adapters gives better results than using bigger teams. If you really need performance (I can help you figure out if that’s you), then faster adapters gives better results than big teams. I am as exasperated as anyone at how often 10GbE is oversold to institutions that can barely stress a 100Mbps network, but I am equally exasperated at people that try to get the equivalent of 10GbE out of 10x 1 GbE connections.
  • SR-IOV doesn’t work in LBFO, but it might with SET. I mentioned this above, but it’s worth reiterating.

What About the Hyper-V Virtual Switch and Clustering?

The simplest way to explain the relationship between the Hyper-V virtual switch and failover clustering is that the Hyper-V virtual switch is not a clustered role. The cluster is completely unaware of any virtual switches whatsoever. Hyper-V, of course, is very aware of them. When you attempt to migrate a virtual machine from one cluster node to another, Hyper-V will perform a sort of “pre-flight” check. One of those checks involves looking for a virtual switch on the destination host with the same name of every virtual switch that the migrating virtual machine connects to. If the destination host does not have a virtual switch with a matching name, Hyper-V will not migrate the virtual machine. With versions 2012 and later, you have the option to use “resource pools” of virtual switches, and in that case it will attempt to match the name of the resource pool instead of the switch, but the same name-matching rule applies.

Starting with the 2012 version, you cannot Live Migrate a clustered virtual machine if it is connected to an internal or a private virtual switch. That’s true even if the target host has a switch with the same name. The “pre-flight” check will fail. I have not tried it with a Shared Nothing Live Migration.

When a clustered virtual machine is Live Migrated, there is the potential for a minor service outage. The MAC address(es) of the virtual machines virtual adapter(s) must be unregistered from the source virtual switch (and therefore its attached physical switch) and re-registered at the destination. If you are using dynamic MAC addresses, then the MACs may be returned to the source host’s pool and replaced with new MACs on the destination host, in which case a similar de-registration and registration sequence will occur. All of this happens easily within the standard TCP timeout window, so in-flight TCP communications should succeed with a brief and potentially detectable hiccup. UDP and all other traffic with non-error-correcting behavior (including ICMP and IGMP operations like PING) will be lost during this process. Hyper-V performs the de-registration and registration extremely quickly — the duration of the delay will depend upon the amount of time necessary to propagate the MAC changes throughout the network.

Should I Use Multiple Hyper-V Virtual Switches?

In a word: no. That’s not a rule, but a very powerful guideline. Multiple virtual switches can cause quite a bit of processing overhead and rarely provide any benefit.

The exception would be if you really need to physically isolate network traffic. For instance, you might have a virtualized web server living in a DMZ and you don’t want any physical overlap between that DMZ and your internal networks. You’ll need to use multiple physical network adapters and multiple virtual switches to make that happen. Truthfully, VLANs should provide sufficient security and isolation.

You should definitely not create multiple virtual switches just to separate roles. For instance, don’t make one virtual switch for management operating system traffic and another for virtual machine traffic. The processing overhead outweighs any possible benefits. Create a team of all the adapters and converge as much traffic on it as possible. If you detect an issue, implement QoS.

What About VMQ on the Hyper-V Virtual Switch?

VMQ is a more advanced topic than I want to spend a lot of time on in this article, so we’re only going to touch on it briefly. VMQ allows incoming data for a virtual adapter to be processed on a CPU core other than the first physical core of the first physical CPU (0:0). When VMQ is not in effect, all inbound traffic is processed on 0:0. Keep these points in mind:

  • If you are using gigabit adapters, VMQ is pointless. CPU 0:0 can handle many 1GbE adapters. Disable VMQ if your 1GbE adapters support it. Most of them do not implement VMQ properly and will cause a traffic slowdown.
  • Not all 10GbE adapters implement VMQ properly. If your virtual machines seem to struggle to communicate, begin troubleshooting by turning off VMQ.
  • If you disable VMQ on your physical adapters and you have teamed them, make sure that you also disable VMQ on the logical team adapter.

Which type of virtual switch has a connection to a physical network adapter?

Hyper-V's External Switch The external switch type must be connected to a physical adapter. It allows communications between the physical network and the management operating system and the virtual adapters on virtual machines.

What type of virtual switch do you need to connect a virtual machine to a physical network using Microsoft?

A Hyper-V virtual switch in external mode allows communications between virtual adapters connected to virtual machines and the management operating system. It uses single or teamed physical adapters to connect to a physical switch, thereby allowing communications with other systems.

What are the types of virtual switches?

There are three types of virtual switches that may be created in the Virtual Switch Manager. They are External, Internal, and Private.

Which virtual switch can be used only by virtual machine that run on the physical computer only?

Hyper-V Virtual Switch is a software-based layer-2 Ethernet network switch that is available in Hyper-V Manager when you install the Hyper-V server role. Hyper-V Virtual Switch includes programmatically managed and extensible capabilities to connect VMs to both virtual networks and the physical network.