VMware 2V0-41.23 VMware NSX 4.x Professional Exam Practice Test

According to the VMware NSX Documentation1, a segment is mapped to a unique Geneve segment that is distributed across the ESXi hosts in a transport zone. The Geneve segment uses a virtual network identifier (VNI) as an overlay network identifier. The VNI ID can be used to identify overlay segments in an NSX environment if troubleshooting is required.

The command vmkping ++netstack=geneve -d -s 1572  is used to check the VMware kernel ports for tunnel end point communication. This command uses the geneve netstack, which is the default netstack for NSX-T. The -d option sets the DF (Don’t Fragment) bit in the IP header, which prevents the packet from being fragmented by intermediate routers. The -s 1572 option sets the packet size to 1572 bytes, which is the maximum payload size for a geneve encapsulated packet with an MTU of 1600 bytes. The  is the IP address of the remote ESXi host or VM. References: : VMware NSX-T Data Center Installation Guide, page 19. : VMware Knowledge Base: Testing MTU with the vmkping command (1003728). : VMware NSX-T Data Center Administration Guide, page 102.

The minimum MTU size for the UPLINK profile is 1700 bytes. This is because the UPLINK profile is used to configure the physical NICs that connect to the NSX-T overlay network. The overlay network uses geneve encapsulation, which adds an overhead of 54 bytes to the original packet. Therefore, to support a standard MTU of 1500 bytes for the inner packet, the outer packet must have an MTU of at least 1554 bytes. However, VMware recommends adding an extra buffer of 146 bytes to account for possible additional headers or VLAN tags. Therefore, the minimum MTU size for the UPLINK profile is 1700 bytes (1554 + 146). References: : VMware NSX-T Data Center Installation Guide, page 23. : VMware NSX-T Data Center Administration Guide, page 102. : VMware NSX-T Data Center Installation Guide, page 24.

https://nsx.techzone.vmware.com/resource/nsx-reference-design-guide#a-31-the-nsx-virtual-switch

• Route Aggregation and and D) BGP neighbours are available when configuring BGP in a VRF. "Route distribution" does not exist, what you can do is a "Route Re-Distribution" via BGP. https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX/4.1/administration/GUID-4CB5796A-1CED-4F0E-ADE0-72BF7B3F762C.html

An NSX administrator can use TCP, UDP, or TLS protocols to transfer log messages to a remote log server. These protocols are supported by NSX Manager, NSX Edge, and hypervisors for remote logging. A Log Insight log server supports all these protocols, as well as LI and LI-TLS, which are specific to Log Insight and optimize network usage. HTTPS, SSH, and SSL are not valid protocols for remote logging in NSX-T Data Center. References: : VMware NSX-T Data Center Administration Guide, page 102. : VMware Docs: Configure Remote Logging

According to the VMware NSX 4.x Professional documents and tutorials, a RouterLink port is a logical port that connects a Tier-1 gateway to a Tier-0 gateway. This port is automatically created when a Tier-1 gateway is associated with a Tier-0 gateway from the NSX UI or API. The RouterLink port enables routing between the two gateways and carries all the routing protocols and traffic. There is no need to manually create a logical switch or segment for this purpose1.

VMware NSX is a portfolio of networking and security solutions that enables consistent policy, operations, and automation across multiple cloud environments1

The VMware NSX portfolio includes the following solutions:

• VMware NSX Data Center: A platform for data center network virtualization and security that delivers a complete L2-L7 networking stack and overlay services for any workload1
• VMware NSX Cloud: A service that extends consistent networking and security to public clouds such as AWS and Azure1
• VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer: A solution that provides load balancing, web application firewall, analytics, and monitoring for applications across any cloud12
• VMware NSX Distributed IDS/IPS: A feature that provides distributed intrusion detection and prevention for workloads across any cloud12
• VMware NSX Intelligence: A service that provides planning, observability, and intelligence for network and micro-segmentation1
• VMware NSX Federation: A capability that enables multi-site networking and security management with consistent policy and operational state synchronization1
• VMware NSX Service Mesh: A service that connects, secures, and monitors microservices across multiple clusters and clouds1
• VMware NSX for Horizon: A solution that delivers secure desktops and applications across any device, location, or network1
• VMware NSX for vSphere: A solution that provides network agility and security for vSphere environments with a built-in console in vCenter1
• VMware NSX-T Data Center: A platform for cloud-native applications that supports containers, Kubernetes, bare metal hosts, and multi-hypervisor environments1

VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid and VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Cluster are not part of the VMware NSX portfolio. They are solutions for running Kubernetes clusters on any cloud3

VMware Aria Automation is not a real product name. It is a fictional name that does not exist in the VMware portfolio.

https://blogs.vmware.com/networkvirtualization/2020/01/nsx-hero.html/

The answer is C. Group all by means of tags membership.

Tags are metadata that can be applied to physical servers, virtual machines, logical ports, and logical segments in NSX. Tags can be used for dynamic security group membership, which allows for granular and flexible enforcement of security policies based on various criteria1

In the scenario, the company is deploying NSX micro-segmentation to secure a simple application composed of web, app, and database tiers. The naming convention will be:

• WKS-WEB-SRV-XXX
• WKY-APP-SRR-XXX
• WKI-DB-SRR-XXX

The optimal way to group them to enforce security policies from NSX is to use tags membership. For example, the company can create three tags: Web, App, and DB, and assign them to the corresponding VMs based on their names. Then, the company can create three security groups: Web-SG, App-SG, and DB-SG, and use the tags as the membership criteria. Finally, the company can create and apply security policies to the security groups based on the desired rules and actions2

Using tags membership has several advantages over the other options:

• It is more scalable and dynamic than using Edge as a firewall between tiers. Edge firewall is a centralized solution that can create bottlenecks and performance issues when handling large amounts of traffic3
• It is more simple and efficient than doing a service insertion to accomplish the task. Service insertion is a feature that allows for integrating third-party services with NSX, such as antivirus or intrusion prevention systems. Service insertion is not necessary for basic micro-segmentation and can introduce additional complexity and overhead.
• It is more flexible and granular than creating an Ethernet based security policy. Ethernet based security policy is a type of policy that uses MAC addresses as the source or destination criteria. Ethernet based security policy is limited by the scope of layer 2 domains and does not support logical constructs such as segments or groups.

To learn more about tags membership and how to use it for micro-segmentation in NSX, you can refer to the following resources:

• VMware NSX Documentation: Security Tag 1
• VMware NSX Micro-segmentation Day 1: Chapter 4 - Security Policy Design 2
• VMware NSX 4.x Professional: Security Groups
• VMware NSX 4.x Professional: Security Policies

The correct order of the rule processing steps of the Distributed Firewall is as follows:

• Packet arrives at vfilter connection table. If matching entry in the table, process the packet.
• If connection table has no match, compare the packet to the rule table.
• If the packet matches source, destination, service, profile and applied to fields, apply the action defined.
• If the rule table action is allow, create an entry in the connection table and forward the packet.
• If the rule table action is reject or deny, take that action.

This order is based on the description of how the Distributed Firewall works in the web search results1. The first step is to check if there is an existing connection entry for the packet in the vfilter connection table, which is a cache of flow entries for rules with an allow action. If there is a match, the packet is processed according to the connection entry. If there is no match, the packet is compared to the rule table, which contains all the security policy rules. The rules are evaluated from top to bottom until a match is found. The match criteria include source, destination, service, profile and applied to fields. The action defined by the matching rule is applied to the packet. The action can be allow, reject or deny. If the action is allow, a new connection entry is created for the packet and the packet is forwarded to its destination. If the action is reject or deny, the packet is dropped and an ICMP message or a TCP reset message is sent back to the source.

The answer is A. SR is instantiated and automatically connected with DR.

SR stands for Service Router and DR stands for Distributed Router. They are components of the NSX Edge node that provide different functions1

The SR is responsible for providing stateful services such as NAT, firewall, load balancing, VPN, and DHCP. The DR is responsible for providing distributed routing and switching between logical segments and the physical network1

When a stateful service is enabled for the first time on a Tier-0 Gateway, the NSX Edge node automatically creates an SR instance and connects it with the existing DR instance. This allows the stateful service to be applied to the traffic that passes through the SR before reaching the DR2

According to the VMware NSX 4.x Professional Exam Guide, understanding the SR and DR components and their functions is one of the exam objectives3

To learn more about the SR and DR components and how they work on the NSX Edge node, you can refer to the following resources:

• VMware NSX Documentation: NSX Edge Components 1
• VMware NSX 4.x Professional: NSX Edge Architecture
• VMware NSX 4.x Professional: NSX Edge Routing

The correct answers are A. Files and anti-malware (file) events from the NSX Edge nodes and the Security Analyzer, D. IDS/IPS events from the ESXi hosts and NSX Edge nodes, and E. Suspicious Traffic Detection events from NSX Intelligence. According to the VMware NSX Documentation3, these are the three data collection sources that are used by NSX Network Detection and Response to create correlations/intrusion campaigns.

The other options are incorrect or not supported by NSX Network Detection and Response. East-West anti-malware events from the ESXi hosts are not collected by NSX Network Detection and Response3. Distributed Firewall flow data from the ESXi hosts are not used for correlation/intrusion campaigns by NSX Network Detection and Response3.

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX-T-Data-Center/3.2/administration/GUID-14BBE50D-9931-4719-8FA7-884539C0D277.html

To allow syslog on an ESXi transport node, the administrator needs to use the esxcli utility to enable the syslog ruleset in the ESXi firewall. The correct syntax for this command is esxcli network firewall ruleset set -r syslog -e true, where -r specifies the ruleset name and -e specifies whether to enable or disable it. The other options are incorrect because they either use an invalid syntax, such as omitting the ruleset name or using -a instead of -r, or they disable the syslog ruleset instead of enabling it, which is the opposite of what the question asks. References: [ESXi Firewall Command-Line Interface], [Configure Syslog on ESXi Hosts]

A. Can be used as an Exterior Gateway Protocol. This is correct. BGP is a protocol that can be used to exchange routing information between different autonomous systems (AS). An AS is a network or a group of networks under a single administrative control. BGP can be used as an Exterior Gateway Protocol (EGP) to connect an AS to other ASes on the internet or other external networks1

B. It supports a 4-byte autonomous system number. This is correct. BGP supports both 2-byte and 4-byte AS numbers. A 2-byte AS number can range from 1 to 65535, while a 4-byte AS number can range from 65536 to 4294967295. NSX supports both 2-byte and 4-byte AS numbers for BGP configuration on a Tier-0 Gateway2

C. The network is divided into areas that are logical groups. This is incorrect. This statement describes OSPF, not BGP. OSPF is another routing protocol that operates within a single AS and divides the network into areas to reduce routing overhead and improve scalability. BGP does not use the concept of areas, but rather uses attributes, policies, and filters to control the routing decisions and traffic flow3

D. FIGRP Is disabled by default. This is correct. FIGRP stands for Fast Interior Gateway Routing Protocol, which is an enhanced version of IGRP, an obsolete routing protocol developed by Cisco. FIGRP is not supported by NSX and is disabled by default on a Tier-0 Gateway.

E. BGP is enabled by default. This is incorrect. BGP is not enabled by default on a Tier-0 Gateway. To enable BGP, you need to configure the local AS number and the BGP neighbors on the Tier-0 Gateway using the NSX Manager UI or API.

To learn more about BGP configuration on a Tier-0 Gateway in NSX, you can refer to the following resources:

• VMware NSX Documentation: Configure BGP 1
• VMware NSX 4.x Professional: BGP Configuration
• VMware NSX 4.x Professional: BGP Troubleshooting

To configure a firewall rule based on the domain name of a specific application, the administrator needs to use the Profile field in a distributed firewall rule. The Profile field allows the administrator to select a context profile that contains one or more attributes for filtering traffic. One of the attributes that can be used is Domain (FQDN) Name, which specifies the fully qualified domain name of the application. For example, if the administrator wants to filter traffic to *.office365.com, they can create a context profile with the Domain (FQDN) Name attribute set to *.office365.com and use it in the Profile field of the firewall rule.

References:

• Filtering Specific Domains (FQDN/URLs)
• FQDN Filtering

According to the web search results, network segmentation is a feature of NSX that improves the security of today’s modern workloads by preventing lateral movement. Lateral movement is a technique used by attackers to move from one compromised system to another within a network, exploiting vulnerabilities or credentials . Network segmentation prevents lateral movement by dividing a network into smaller segments or zones, each with its own security policies and controls. This way, if one segment is compromised, the attacker cannot access other segments or resources . NSX enables network segmentation by using micro-segmentation, which applies granular firewall rules at the virtual machine level, regardless of the physical network topology .

The two interfaces that will be used for ingress traffic on the Edge node supporting a Single Tier topology are:

• B. Tier-0 Uplink interface
• C. Downlink Interface for the Tier-0 DR

The Tier-0 Uplink interface is the interface that connects the Tier-0 gateway to the external network. It is used to receive traffic from the physical router or switch that is the next hop for the Tier-0 gateway. The Tier-0 Uplink interface can be configured with a static IP address or use BGP to exchange routes with the external network.

The Downlink Interface for the Tier-0 DR is the interface that connects the Tier-0 gateway to the workload segments. It is used to receive traffic from the VMs or containers that are attached to the segments. The Downlink Interface for the Tier-0 DR is a logical interface (LIF) that is distributed across all transport nodes that host the segments. The Downlink Interface for the Tier-0 DR has an IP address that acts as the default gateway for the VMs or containers on the segments.

The MAC table on an ESXi host is used to determine the location of a particular workload for a frame-forwarding decision. The MAC table maps the MAC addresses of the workloads to their corresponding tunnel endpoint (TEP) IP addresses. The TEP IP address identifies the ESXi host where the workload resides. The MAC table is populated by learning the source MAC addresses of the incoming frames from the workloads. The MAC table is also synchronized with other ESXi hosts in the same transport zone by using the NSX Controller.

https://nsx.techzone.vmware.com/resource/nsx-reference-design-guide

according to the VMware NSX Documentation, these are the three parameters that must match in order to establish an OSPF neighbor relationship with an upstream router on a tier-0 gateway:

• MTU of the Uplink: The maximum transmission unit (MTU) of the uplink interface must match the MTU of the upstream router interface. Otherwise, OSPF packets may be fragmented or dropped, causing neighbor adjacency issues.
• Subnet mask: The subnet mask of the uplink interface must match the subnet mask of the upstream router interface. Otherwise, OSPF packets may not reach the correct destination or be rejected by the upstream router.
• Area ID: The area ID of the uplink interface must match the area ID of the upstream router interface. Otherwise, OSPF packets may be ignored or discarded by the upstream router.

https://www.computernetworkingnotes.com/ccna-study-guide/ospf-neighborship-condition-and-requirement.html

The Traceflow tool identifies issues in a network by injecting synthetic traffic into the data plane and observing the results in the control plane. This allows the tool to identify any issues in the network and provide a detailed report on the problem. You can use the Traceflow tool to test connectivity between any two endpoints in your NSX-T Data Center environment.

According to the VMware NSX Documentation, TEP stands for Tunnel End Point and is a logical interface that must be configured on transport nodes for encapsulation and decapsulation of Geneve protocol. Geneve is a tunneling protocol that encapsulates the original packet with an outer header that contains metadata such as the virtual network identifier (VNI) and the transport node IP address. TEPs are responsible for adding and removing the Geneve header as the packet traverses the overlay network.

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX/4.1/administration/GUID-69DF70C2-1769-4858-97E7-B757CAED08F0.html#:~:text=On%20the%20north%2Dsouth%20traffic,Guest%20Introspection%20(GI)%20platform .

The main components on the edge node for north-south malware prevention perform the following functions:

• IDS/IPS engine: Extracts files and relays events and data to the security hub

North-south malware prevention uses the file extraction features of the IDS/IPS engine that runs on NSX Edge for north-south traffic.

• Security hub: Collects file events, obtains verdicts for known files, sends files for local and cloud-based analysis, and sends information to the security analyzer

• RAPID: Provides local analysis of the file

• ASDS Cache: Caches reputation and verdicts of known files

The RouterLink port is automatically created when a Tier-1 Gateway is connected with a Tier-0 Gateway from the NSX UI1. The RouterLink port is a logical interface that is assigned an IP address and is associated with a physical or virtual interface. The RouterLink port acts as an end point of the IPSec tunnel and routes traffic between the Tier-1 Gateway and the Tier-0 Gateway2. The other options are incorrect because they involve manual creation of logical switches or segments, which are not required for RouterLink port creation. References: Configure NSX for Virtual Networking from vSphere Client, Virtual Private Network (VPN)

https://docs.vmware.com/jp/VMware-NSX/4.0/administration/GUID-3F163DEE-1EE6-4D80-BEBF-8D109FDB577C.html

According to the VMware NSX Documentation, these are the prerequisites for adding nodes to an NSX Management Cluster using the NSX UI:

• All nodes must be in the same subnet and have IP connectivity with each other.
• A compute manager must be configured and associated with the NSX Manager node.
• The NSX Manager node must have a valid license.
• The NSX Manager node must have a valid certificate.

The log for a firewall rule on an ESXi transport node is stored in the /var/log/dfwpktlogs.log file. This file contains information about the packets that match or do not match the firewall rules, such as the source and destination IP addresses, ports, protocols, actions, and rule IDs. The log file can be viewed using the esxcli network firewall get command or the vSphere Client. 

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX-T-Data-Center/3.2/administration/GUID-D57429A1-A0A9-42BE-A299-0C3C3546ABF3.html

The four types of role-based access control (RBAC) permissions are Read, None, Full access, and Execute1. Read permission allows the user to view the configuration and status of the system. None permission denies any access to the system. Full access permission grants all permissions including Create, Read, Update, and Delete (CRUD). Execute permission includes Read and Update permissions1. Auditor, Enterprise Admin, and Network Admin are not types of permissions, but types of roles that have different sets of permissions. References: NSX Features

There are four types of permissions. Included in the list are the abbreviations for the permissions that are used in the Roles and Permissions and Roles and Permissions for Manager Mode tables.

• Full access (FA) - All permissions including Create, Read, Update, and Delete
• Execute (E) - Includes Read and Update
• Read (R)
• None

NSX-T Data Center has the following built-in roles. Role names in the UI can be different in the API. In NSX-T Data Center, if you have permission, you can clone an existing role, add a new role, edit newly created roles, or delete newly created roles.

Role-Based Access Control (vmware.com)

To configure NSX Manager for two-factor authentication (2FA), an NSX administrator must have VMware Identity Manager (vIDM) with an OAuth Client added. vIDM provides identity management services and supports various 2FA methods, such as VMware Verify, RSA SecurID, and RADIUS. An OAuth Client is a configuration entity in vIDM that represents an application that can use vIDM for authentication and authorization. NSX Manager must be registered as an OAuth Client in vIDM before it can use 2FA. References: : VMware NSX-T Data Center Installation Guide, page 19. : VMware NSX-T Data Center Administration Guide, page 102. : VMware Blogs: Two-Factor Authentication with VMware NSX-T

The correct answer is to enable the OSPF toggle and to add an Area Definition for the Tier-0 gateway in the image. These two items are required to configure OSPF on the Tier-0 gateway, as explained in the web search results123.

To mark your answers by clicking twice on the image, you can double-click on the toggle switch next to OSPF to turn it on. The switch should change from gray to blue, indicating that the option is enabled. Then, you can double-click on the Set button next to Area Definition to add an area definition. A pop-up window should appear where you can specify the area ID and type. 

1. Click the OSPF toggle to enable OSPF 2. In the Area Definition field, click Set to add an area definition https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX-T-Data-Center/3.2/administration/GUID-5BEC626C-5312-467D-B873-8E117349E9FC.html

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX/4.1/administration/GUID-69604E49-BC8B-4777-BFD8-B98F8D1FF064.html

According to the VMware documentation1, the clock icon appears on the firewall policy section that you want to have a time window. By clicking the clock icon, you can create or select a time window that applies to all the rules in that policy section. The other options are incorrect because they either do not exist or are not related to the time-based rule feature. There is no option to set a time-based rule in the rule itself, as it is a policy-level setting. There is also an option to set a time-based rule in the NSX UI, so it does not require using the command line interface.

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX/4.1/administration/GUID-8572496E-A60E-48C3-A016-4A081AC80BE7.html