VMware Communities: Network connection does not function on first startup of player

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13 Replies Last post: Jul 18, 2007 6:36 AM by inetmug

Network connection does not function on first startup of player

Jun 15, 2007 9:48 AM

inetmug 27 posts since
Mar 5, 2007

Hi All,

I have a Ubuntu image that when initially loaded into the player (versions 1.x and 2.0), fails to establish a network connection. An automatic browser launch consequently fails to find google.

However, ALL subsequent launchs of the player with the image has no issues, and everything works perfectly.

Is this a VMWare player thing, or could it be ubuntu doing some sort of plug and play? Or, is it related to the image ID when the image is loaded into the player on a different machine?

Thanks in advance.

Reply Re: Network connection does not function on first startup of player Jun 16, 2007 5:30 AM

oreeh 9,804 posts since
Nov 30, 2005 Moderator

Do you use bridged or NAT networking?

Reply Re: Network connection does not function on first startup of player Jun 18, 2007 10:24 AM

in response to: oreeh

inetmug 27 posts since
Mar 5, 2007

Do you use bridged or NAT networking?

I am using bridged.

Reply Re: Network connection does not function on first startup of player Jun 18, 2007 11:29 AM

in response to: inetmug

oreeh 9,804 posts since
Nov 30, 2005 Moderator

Could be a DNS timeout issue combined with an arp problem - but I'm not sure.
You can try using NAT to prevent this issue.

Reply Re: Network connection does not function on first startup of player Jun 18, 2007 11:41 AM

in response to: oreeh

inetmug 27 posts since
Mar 5, 2007

Could be a DNS timeout issue combined with an arp
problem - but I'm not sure.
You can try using NAT to prevent this issue.

I can look into using NAT I guess. However, this is very repeatable, happens on every user that loads the image the first time, on all sort of boxes, on all sorts of networks/IPs. It just seems like the network device is not configured.

Reply Re: Network connection does not function on first startup of player Jun 18, 2007 11:46 AM

in response to: inetmug

oreeh 9,804 posts since
Nov 30, 2005 Moderator

Stop.

happens on every user that loads the image the first time

Does this mean the the same image is used by multiple users, maybe even concurrently?

If yes you probably you have a MAC address problem.

Message was edited by:
oreeh

You can verify by checking the VMs MAC address on two different hosts. If they are the same that's your problem.

Reply Re: Network connection does not function on first startup of player Jun 18, 2007 11:53 AM

in response to: oreeh

inetmug 27 posts since
Mar 5, 2007

Stop.

happens on every user that loads the image the

first time

Does this mean the the same image is used by multiple
users, maybe even concurrently?

If yes you probably you have a MAC address problem.

Message was edited by:
oreeh
u can verify by checking the VMs MAC address on two
different hosts. If they are the same that's your
problem.

The same image is used by multiple users, but on seperate boxes. They all have their own image just like if you download an appliance. MAny users use the same image, but they have their own instance of the image locally (just like an appliance).

Remember this happens on ONLY the first time you start the image. ALL subsequent exexutions of the player with the SAME image works flawlessly.

Reply Re: Network connection does not function on first startup of player Jun 18, 2007 4:45 PM

in response to: inetmug

magi 2,091 posts since
Aug 8, 2003 VMware

What defines a start of the image? Are you running it, the VM boots up and no matter what you do you don't get any network connectivity, then you exit Player, run it again and run the same VM, and it works fine? Are you suspending and resuming the VM, or shutting it down and rebooting from scratch the next time?

Reply Re: Network connection does not function on first startup of player Jun 18, 2007 7:05 PM

in response to: magi

inetmug 27 posts since
Mar 5, 2007

What defines a start of the image? Are you running
it, the VM boots up and no matter what you do you
don't get any network connectivity, then you exit
Player, run it again and run the same VM, and it
works fine? Are you suspending and resuming the VM,
or shutting it down and rebooting from scratch the
next time?

The "start of the image" is running the player, and loading a VM.

That is correct, on the initial start of the VM, it boots up but appears to have no connectivity. Upon subsequent starts of the VM after it has been shutdown, it all works perfectly.

It is hard for me personally to recreate it as it never happens on my box because I never have a "first time" since I am the one that will create the images etc., it always works for me. This happens to people that take the VM that I put on an FTP site.

I should also add that we are trying to make an appliance like on the VMWare appliance site. From reading the manual, it looks like the UUID would not have anything to do with this? The dialog box does pop up on the intial start giving you the create, keep, always create, always keep options. So, I was wondering if perhaps the configuration got "reset" or something like that if you selected create?

BTW, I can send you the image if you like, but it is big.

One more thing, this is a full "clone".

Thanks

Message was edited by:
inetmug

Message was edited by:
inetmug

Reply Re: Network connection does not function on first startup of player Jun 20, 2007 8:11 AM

in response to: magi

inetmug 27 posts since
Mar 5, 2007

More information - I asked my coworkers that are using the applicance the following questions regarding this issue:

When you restarted it and then it worked, did you:
Restart the OS itself keeping the player up?
i. By using the restart option like windows?
ii. By a shutdown and hard restart?
Suspend and then resume the session?
Close the player and then open it back up again?
Did you happen to notice if you could get any other connectivity to the internet say within a minute (google, cnn)?
Did anyone select the KEEP option for the UUID when the player starts for the first time?

Answers to the original questions:

1. Tried to Keep the UUID in the first run (yes, still shows) and I still could not get the browser to connect to anything. Where the google map should be a message says "Google MAP should be here". This means no connectivity initially.
2. Tried other sites, such as CNN and it did not connect either.
3. Exited player, suspending: Launched again. Now the browser is working with CNN website
4. Power off and shutdown player: still works.
5. Shutting down from Ubuntu itself: still works
6. Extracted the files from the ZIP file and started fresh: the problem shows again. It gets fixed again when shutting down and restarting the VM player right after the first try (using reset instead also works).
7 Reinstalled VMware player to 1.0.4-build 44386: still same behavior as above.

In all cases my router reports the Ubuntu VM images use exactly the same MAC and IP addresses.

Conclusions?:

This happens on an inital startup of the VM only. A power down, or suspend/resume resolves the problem. What is the cause of this?

Since we are using bridged, could it be that the DHCP servers have not dealt out an IP yet?

Reply Re: Network connection does not function on first startup of player Jun 20, 2007 8:31 AM

in response to: inetmug

oreeh 9,804 posts since
Nov 30, 2005 Moderator

Since we are using bridged, could it be that the DHCP servers have not dealt out an IP yet?

Could be the case - to test it create a VM which uses NAT networking and start this VM on different machines.

Reply Re: Network connection does not function on first startup of player Jun 21, 2007 5:34 AM

in response to: oreeh

inetmug 27 posts since
Mar 5, 2007

Since we are using bridged, could it be that the

DHCP servers have not dealt out an IP yet?

Could be the case - to test it create a VM which uses
NAT networking and start this VM on different
machines.

Ok, tried that. No connectivity at all with NAT.

The image is ubuntu 6.10. I am starting to wonder now if it is plug/play issues with the OS again.

Thanks.

Reply Re: Network connection does not function on first startup of player Jun 21, 2007 6:04 AM

in response to: oreeh

inetmug 27 posts since
Mar 5, 2007

I am now looking into the ubuntu dhclient program to see if perhaps there is a setting that says "refresh the DHCP lease every start".

Any ideas would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Reply Re: Network connection does not function on first startup of player Jul 18, 2007 6:36 AM

in response to: inetmug

inetmug 27 posts since
Mar 5, 2007

Some new information since I am back on this:

When I download my own image, this does not happen on my machine. This only happens when the image is started on a different machine than mine for the first time only. Subsequent starts of the VM work fine.

This certainly looks like a DCHP leasing thing or Ubuntu doing some HW discovery to me.

Any other ideas?

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