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VMware NSX DFW microsegmentation and security: distributed firewall, security groups, tags, traceflow, IDPS

Project description

VMware NSX Security

Author: Wei Zhou, VMware by Broadcom — wei-wz.zhou@broadcom.com This is a community-driven project by a VMware engineer, not an official VMware product. For official VMware developer tools see developer.broadcom.com.

VMware NSX DFW microsegmentation and security MCP skill — 20 tools for distributed firewall policies/rules, security groups, VM tags, Traceflow packet tracing, and IDPS.

Companion skills: vmware-nsx (networking), vmware-aiops (VM lifecycle), vmware-monitor (monitoring)

Quick Start

uv tool install vmware-nsx-security

mkdir -p ~/.vmware-nsx-security
cp config.example.yaml ~/.vmware-nsx-security/config.yaml
# Edit config.yaml with your NSX Manager host

echo "VMWARE_NSX_SECURITY_NSX_PROD_PASSWORD=your_password" > ~/.vmware-nsx-security/.env
chmod 600 ~/.vmware-nsx-security/.env

vmware-nsx-security doctor

What It Does

Category Tools
DFW Policy list, get, create, update, delete, list rules
DFW Rules create, update, delete, stats
Security Groups list, get, create, delete
VM Tags list tags, apply tag
Traceflow run trace, get result
IDPS list profiles, engine status

Total: 20 MCP tools (10 read-only + 10 write)

MCP Server Setup

Add to ~/.claude.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "vmware-nsx-security": {
      "command": "vmware-nsx-security-mcp",
      "env": {
        "VMWARE_NSX_SECURITY_CONFIG": "~/.vmware-nsx-security/config.yaml"
      }
    }
  }
}

Common Workflows

Microsegment an Application

# 1. Create groups by tag
vmware-nsx-security group create web-vms --name "Web VMs" --tag-scope tier --tag-value web
vmware-nsx-security group create app-vms --name "App VMs" --tag-scope tier --tag-value app

# 2. Create DFW policy
vmware-nsx-security policy create web-app-policy --name "Web to App" --category Application

Tag a VM

# Find VM and its external ID
vmware-nsx-security tag list my-vm-01

# Apply tag using the external ID
vmware-nsx-security tag apply <external-id> --scope tier --value web

Trace a Packet

vmware-nsx-security traceflow run <src-lport-id> \
  --src-ip 10.0.1.5 --dst-ip 10.0.2.10 --proto TCP --dst-port 443

Safety

  • Dependency checks: Cannot delete a policy with active rules, or a group referenced by DFW rules
  • Audit logging: All write ops logged to ~/.vmware-nsx-security/audit.log
  • Input validation: IDs validated; all API text sanitized against prompt injection
  • Dry-run mode: All CLI write commands support --dry-run
  • Credential safety: Passwords only from env vars, never in config files

Companion Skills

Skill Scope Tools Install
vmware-aiops ⭐ entry point VM lifecycle, deployment, guest ops, clusters 31 uv tool install vmware-aiops
vmware-monitor Read-only monitoring, alarms, events, VM info 8 uv tool install vmware-monitor
vmware-nsx NSX networking: segments, gateways, NAT, IPAM 31 uv tool install vmware-nsx-mgmt
vmware-storage Datastores, iSCSI, vSAN 11 uv tool install vmware-storage
vmware-vks Tanzu Namespaces, TKC cluster lifecycle 20 uv tool install vmware-vks
vmware-aria Aria Ops metrics, alerts, capacity planning 18 uv tool install vmware-aria

License

MIT

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