bridge(4) Problems when running under ESXi ?

Hi all,

I am trying to setup an OpenBSD 6.7 virtual machine under VMware ESXi 6.7 to use as a filtering bridge between two virtual networks. I enabled promiscuous mode for both virtual switches.
One network is the VMnet network, which is connected to the "outside world".

"A" ——> "B" ——> "R"

"A" is a test machine 192.168.1.152
"B" is the bridge No IP. em0 connects to R, em1 connects to A
"R" is the router provided by the hoster 192.168.1.1

The addresses are only examples, the actual addresses a public IPs.

When A tries to ping R, ist sends an arp request for R's lladr. R responds with its lladr. Tcpdump on R's em1 suggests that it is sent out on the virtual network. However, A does not see the arp reply, hence ping(8) fails.

What am I missing? While browsing the mailing list archive, I just saw that vmx(4) might be a better choice, but I had not yet time to try it out.


Any other known issues around bridge(4) or promiscuous mode under ESXi ?

Thanks for any insights,

Heinrich