For PVLAN traffic to be passed between ESXi hosts connected to a vDSwitch, the physical switch must be PVLAN-aware and properly configured to support PVLANs. The process to configure the PVLANs on a physical switch will vary from vendor to vendor. The following process shows the steps that are necessary to configure PVLANs on a Cisco IOS switch:

1. Enter the Cisco switch configuration mode:

switch# configure terminal

2. Enable the PVLAN feature on the switch:

switch(config)# feature private-vlan

3. Create the PVLAN on the switch and set the PVLAN type:

 switch(config)# vlan <vlan-id>
 switch(config-vlan)# private-vlan primary

4. Associate the secondary PVLANs with a primary VLAN:

switch(config-vlan)# private-vlan association <secondary pvlan>

5. The switch ports that are connected to the vDSwitch uplinks need to be configured to allow for the PVLAN traffic:

switch(config)# interface GigabitEthernet1/1
switch(config-if)# switchport mode trunk
switch(config-if)# switchport trunk allowed vlan <vlan/pvlan ids>