For us Unix guys, the idea of doing everything in ESX via a GUI is very hard to swallow. Especially when it comes to repetitive tasks like setting up vSwitches and Port Groups. Sure you can spend and arm and a leg on Enterprise Advanced licenses so that you can have distributed switches, but why when you can just script your commands and run that script on each box in your cluster. Below are a few examples of how to use the esxcfg-vswitch command.

Delete a Port Group:

esxcfg-vswitch -D “Service Console” vSwitch1

Add a nic (vmnic2) to a vswitch (vswitch1):

esxcfg-vswitch -L vmnic2 vswitch1 

Remove a pnic (vmnic3) from a vswitch (vswitch0):

esxcfg-vswitch -U vmnic3 vswitch0

Create a portgroup (VM Network3) on a vswitch (vswitch1):

esxcfg-vswitch -A “VM Network 3” vSwitch1

Assign a VLAN ID (3) to a portgroup (VM Network 3) on a vswitch (vswitch1):

esxcfg-vswitch -v 3 -p “VM Network 3” vSwitch1

Change your Service Console (vswif0) IP and Subnet Mask:

esxcfg-vswif -i 172.20.20.5 -n 255.255.255.0 vswif0

Add a Service Console (vswif0):

esxcfg-vswif -a vswif0 -p “Service Console” -i 172.20.20.40 -n 255.255.255.0

Add Vlan to a Port Group:

esxcfg-vswitch “vSwitch name” -p “portgroup name” -v “vlan ID”

List the existing config so you can get your vswitch and portgroup name:

esxcfg-vswitch -l