VMware has published recently, through VMware KB article https://kb.vmware.com/kb/2054806, a very detailed and useful Network port diagram. This diagram covers several VMware products:
- VMware ESXi 5.x
- VMware vCenter Server 5.x
- VMware vCloud Director 5.x
- VMware Update Manager
- vCenter Orchestrator
It shows you which ports are used by vCenter and the other products to communicates between each other, but also the way vCenter communicates with vSphere web client. What you'll also be able to find out are the usual network ports used by those VMware products. Those ports are common network ports for different network services, like those concerning DNS, DHCP, CIM, SPS, NTP, SNMP, SMB, Active Directory, Syslog, SMTP, MS Directory Service or LDAP.
What's cool is that the document has 8 pages in total and has not only the diagram (page 2), but on the other pages you'll find also all the TCP/UDP ports listed with explanation of what each port is used for, for example there you'll find information on ports used by SQL or Oracle DB when used with vCenter Server or good information concerning LDAP ports. In certain cases, there are even links to other external documents.
Example port 389:
This is the LDAP port number for the Directory Services for the vCenter Server group. The vCenter Server system needs to bind to port 389, even if you are not joining this vCenter Server instance to a Linked Mode group. If another service is running on this port, you can run the LDAP service on any port from 1025 through 65535
The Source of the document.
The VMware Network Port diagram took the information from several other source – other VMware KB articles. You might be interested to have a look at those as well:
- KB 1012382 (TCP and UDP required ports)
- KB 1030816 ( vCloud Director required ports)
- KB 2031843 (vCenter server required ports)
- KB 2039095 ( ESXi 5.1.x required ports)
The document version is version 1.0, and shall be updated with future releases of VMware's products. The document was created by using the official VMware Icon and diagram library. Funny that the release date on the document is 2012, but I wasn't aware of it. This latest release has been updated in June 2013.
I put a link to this document at the end of my Free VMware Tools page, where it lays together with other cool links to VMware posters as well, where you can find other useful tools for managing virtualization products from VMware and Microsoft. You might want to check out my post – https://www.vladan.fr/vcenter-server-5-1-required-ports/ as well.
Get the PDF document here: https://kb.vmware.com/kb/2054806
