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How do you make a trunk port on a cisco switch and how do you get it to work with ESX and ESXi?

Why would you want to do this...
To segregate traffic on different VLANs for improved security (802.1q). Meaning you will be able to put virtual machines onto different VLANs (Maybe you have dev, test and production VLANs).

Before you make the port a trunk port, ensure that you set the correct VLAN ID on the port groups, especially the service console. Otherwise you will be unable to connect and manage the server via VI client. If you cannot connect afterwards you can connect to the service console via the server terminal pressing ALT+F1 and then using the esxcfg-vswitch commands set the correct VLAN ID or remove it.


Switch Port Configuration for 802.1q trunking
Make the port a trunk port

interface GigabitEthernet1/13
description ESX Server 1
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport mode trunk
switchport nonegotiate
spanning-tree portfast trunk
end

NOTE: You cannot use VLAN 1 in virtual switches with trunking because the traffic is not tagged.
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