Need Help With The Networking Part Of VMware

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Ok, I want to be able to set up a server running Win2003 and 3 XP workstations in VMWare but the virtual networking and bridging etc is giving me a headache.

My home network is a peer to peer workgroup of 4 XP machines connected to a router. These 4 machines have static IP addresses. 10.0.0.10 to 10.0.0.40 (yeah, I know they should be using 192.168.x.x but I didn't set them up)

My computer has 10.0.0.10 and VMware installed -
The router's IP is 10.0.0.2
I have no way of changing the router settings but it was set up to give out 10.0.0.150 and 10.0.0.151 (DHCP) to any wireless laptop.

I want to be able to run a virtual Server2003 and be able to give it a static address. Then I want 3 virtual PC's that use DHCP from the virtual server.

I don't want the other real PC's to access this virtual lab. Would be a bonus if I could use my XP host to also access the virtual domain.

I'm just getting into a kerfuffle with VMWare seemingly insisting on it's own NAT and DHCP and all the configuration - both real and virtual. I hope I've explained this clearly.

Thanks in advance.

 

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ok first thing you need to do is disable the DHCP Server on the router.

Now to create a private network using your VM's so that a virtual Server 2003 can give out IP's to XP machines create all the machines using Bridged. Here is an example:

Server 2003 IP: 192.168.1.1
DHCP Range: 192.168.1.10-192.168.1.30

When you specifying the DHCP options give the IP of your router (10.0.0.2) as the gateway so they can access the internet too...

Edit: give the host you want to access the domain an IP in the same range you specifiy for the virtual network

 

Zimbo, I can't access the router and besides, someone in the household wirelessly connects with their laptop and gets one of the two dynamic IPs.

 

then try it without disabling the router... use bridge as the network setting and use a different IP range only putting the PC you need to access the virtual domain in the same IP range

 

So in the Virtual Network Editor in VMware what should the settings be?

For instance I have VMnet0 bridged to my host NIC
I also don't have any virtual connections showing on my host computer coz I err..deleted them

 

Kerfluffle,

Get extra real computers instead of using VMWare.

 

why should he?

Dont edit anything with that editor. If you have make sure you set everything back to default. And your NIC should be set to Bridged not Custom(VNet0 etc)

 

Vmware is a very good product and there is no need to get real PC's! Yes there are some disadvantages but once you know what you doing with Vmware the skys the limit!

 

The editor says:

VMnet0 (Bridged) To an automatically chosen adapter
VMnet1 (Host Only) Subnet 192.168.91.0 DHCP enabled (sounds wrong to me)
VMnet8 (NAT) Subnet 192.168.241.0 DHCP enabled (also sounds wrong)

Shouldn't I be disabling NAT and DHCP ?

Also, with these addresses, how can I set the default gateway on virtual server to be on a different subnet (10.0.0.2) It has to be the same subnet surely.

I can't believe I'm not getting this yet.

 

I would keep the *virtual machines* out of the equation to be honest unless you want them to have net access of course.

Not only because of the networking headache, but you will need AV etc...

Si

 

Your gateway *needs* to be in the same subnet as the rest of your boxes ie in this example 192.168.1.x You have given a gateway addy that is not reachable on this set up ie 10.0.0.2

Hence why Sparky has given ranges in the 10.0.0.x range as boxes configured with that range will be able to reach the router which the OP said he can't access to configure.

 

That range is perfectly valid for a private network. As long as the amount of available hosts suits your needs and the amount of available subnets suits your needs there is no probs. In your case, I would stick with this scheme but try and determine what the subnet mask is and use fixed IP addreses that are within the same subnet but outside the range that your router DHCP is configured to lease.

 

OK, I'm not at home so I don't have VMWare in front of me, therefore my terminology might be a little out but...

VMWare has several "virtual hubs" with different default settings. I think hub 8 is set by default to be completely isolated. In the network settings of each VM you can add them to the hub of your choice. Add them all the hub 8 and you should then have your lab totally isolated from the rest of your network machines. In the Virtual Network editor you can then add segments to hub 8 to either bridge it to your gateway or connect it to the host OS.

HTH, I will look tomorrow to make sure I have the gist of this correct and will edit this post accordingly.

 

yeah my bad... its this java...

Code:

JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null,"[B]too much of it and not enough beer![/B]");

 

Ok

from my first read of your post you have said you want your VMs to be seperate from the real network but accessable from the host

for this you want to use VMNet1 (Host Only) and disable DHCP on it so that the Server (win2003) dishes out the addresses

you will find your PC already has a virtual network card on this network (do an ipconfig /all to confirm) and thus can connect to it whilst other devices on your network will not have a route to it

To disable DHCP on VMNet1 goto Virtual Network Settings
click the DHCP tab and just remove VMNet1 from the list

then you can manually give the 2003 server a 192.168.?.x address and set up dhcp for the remainder of the guest operating systems

 

Ok, I shall have another go at it this afternoon.

When I installed VMware I had to tell my firewall to accept 2 new networks - 192.168.241.1 and 192.168.91.1

This was as it was installing. No virtual PC had been setup. I'd got a bit confused with what was going on there.
I take it that they are 'untrusted networks' like the Internet?

 

No

these are additional network interfaces created on the HOST OS to provide the NAT based VMNet option and the VMNet1 (Host Only) based Network

if you go and create VMNet2 and VMNet3 you will find another two are created

check your Network Connections and you will see the additional network cards


The way i described will give you something like this

 

Cheers Phoenix I think I get it now.

Excellent Diagram BTW.

So, is there a way to get the virtual PC's to access the Internet through the host while still getting their IP addresses from the virtual server (i.e not requesting IP's from the router)?

 

What if I set up the host to use ICS?