Wireless physical NIC can't see my bridged and custom VM IP's

[dafunkphenom]

I'm trying to setup 2 networks on different subnets that can communicate with each other over my DSL Wireless router.

I want to do this by having each virtual machine with dual NIC's. One bridged (vmnet0) and the other custom (vmnet2) and then setup static routes on my DSL gateway and route traffic to my custom NIC through the bridged configuration.

I have it almost setup but can't seem to be able to get it to work properly on my laptop over my physical wifi card.

From looking at the routing tables on my DSL gateway I can see the IP's of my physical NIC's of my laptop and PC and also the bridged virtual NIC of my wired PC but I am unable to see the bridged virtual NIC over my WIFI card. If I use the ethernet port on my laptop I can see all 4 (2 physical and 2 bridged) of all my systems. I wanted to know if it is possible to have a bridged and custom dual NIC configuration over a WIFI card on my virtual machine in Workstation 6.

Any thoughts?

[Peter_vm]

Can you post your host network configuration? If you run Windows then "IPCONFIG /ALL", for Linux "ifconfig -a".

Also, that will be helpful to see guest configs (".vmx") and VMware Virtual Networks... setup.

[dafunkphenom]

Here is the network information from my Windows Vista host on my laptop using my wifi card. My bridged config is on VMNET0 192.168.2.x and my custom config is on VMNET2 192.168.106.x Note: I have the ethernet card disabled.

Also why does Vista report "local area network 6" and "local area network 9" listed below. I only have 2 NIC's and can only see 2 NIC's in my network settings?

C:\Users\Dave>ipconfig /all

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Notebook-X

Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :

Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid

IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes

WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Con

nection

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-1B-77-75-85-64

DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.11(Preferred)

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1

NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : VMware Virtual Ethernet Adapter for VMnet

2

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-50-56-C0-00-02

DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::974:c373:e0da:f35e%11(Preferred)

IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.106.1(Preferred)

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : fec0:0:0:ffff::1%1

fec0:0:0:ffff::2%1

fec0:0:0:ffff::3%1

NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 6:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : isatap.{D0B678CA-F5D9-4D92-A447-77B379D94

C43}

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0

DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::5efe:192.168.2.11%13(Preferred)

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1

NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Disabled

Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 9:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 02-00-54-55-4E-01

DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 10:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : isatap.{E21E27C5-F6C3-4526-969F-628FC741F

CA0}

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0

DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::5efe:192.168.106.1%12(Preferred)

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : fec0:0:0:ffff::1%1

fec0:0:0:ffff::2%1

fec0:0:0:ffff::3%1

NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Disabled

[dafunkphenom]

Here is my VMX file config

config.version = "8"

virtualHW.version = "6"

numvcpus = "2"

scsi0.present = "TRUE"

scsi0.virtualDev = "lsilogic"

memsize = "256"

scsi0:0.present = "TRUE"

scsi0:0.fileName = "GenWin2k3.vmdk"

ide1:0.present = "TRUE"

ide1:0.fileName = "auto detect"

ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-raw"

floppy0.autodetect = "TRUE"

ethernet0.present = "TRUE"

ethernet0.wakeOnPcktRcv = "FALSE"

usb.present = "TRUE"

ehci.present = "TRUE"

sound.present = "TRUE"

sound.fileName = "-1"

sound.autodetect = "TRUE"

svga.autodetect = "TRUE"

pciBridge0.present = "TRUE"

mks.keyboardFilter = "allow"

displayName = "GenWin2k3"

guestOS = "winnetstandard"

nvram = "GenWin2k3.nvram"

deploymentPlatform = "windows"

virtualHW.productCompatibility = "hosted"

tools.upgrade.policy = "useGlobal"

ide1:0.autodetect = "TRUE"

floppy0.fileName = "A:"

ethernet1.present = "TRUE"

ethernet1.connectionType = "custom"

ethernet1.vnet = "VMNet2"

ethernet1.wakeOnPcktRcv = "FALSE"

isolation.tools.hgfs.disable = "TRUE"

ethernet0.addressType = "generated"

ethernet1.addressType = "generated"

uuid.location = "56 4d 7a dc 77 db fa 6b-3b d7 4a 4c 57 1d 7e a6"

uuid.bios = "56 4d 7a dc 77 db fa 6b-3b d7 4a 4c 57 1d 7e a6"

uuid.action = "create"

scsi0:0.redo = ""

pciBridge0.pciSlotNumber = "17"

scsi0.pciSlotNumber = "16"

ethernet0.pciSlotNumber = "32"

ethernet1.pciSlotNumber = "33"

sound.pciSlotNumber = "34"

ehci.pciSlotNumber = "35"

ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:1d:7e:a6"

ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0"

ethernet1.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:1d:7e:b0"

ethernet1.generatedAddressOffset = "10"

extendedConfigFile = "Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition.vmxf"

tools.remindInstall = "FALSE"

ide1:0.startConnected = "TRUE"

tools.syncTime = "FALSE"

floppy0.startConnected = "FALSE"

[dafunkphenom]

Here is the network information from my Windows Server 2003 VM.

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>ipconfig /all

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : genwin2k3-Notebook

Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :

Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown

IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : VMware Accelerated AMD PCNet Adapter

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-0C-29-1D-7E-A6

DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.21

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : VMware Accelerated AMD PCNet Adapter #2

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-0C-29-1D-7E-B0

DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.106.30

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.106.1

[Peter_vm]

From host IPCONFIG I can see there is only one physical NIC. That means all other networks end on host. That includes vmnet1 up to vmnet8 networks. You can't connect physical network to host adapters marked as VMnet1 - VMnet8. Unless you turn host into a router. In fact, you have already one: VMware router running on VMnet8 interface (doing also NAT). Your wireless router have only one local network to manage. That is the one on which physical NIC sits. There is no point to add routes on wireless router, because VMnet1 - VMnet8 cannot be reached. They "live" in host and there is no way to connect to them from outside.

[dafunkphenom]

I realize that. I think I may have worded the subject line a bit wrong in my original posting. Probably because I was working at this so long that I ran out of coffee. My issue is my wireless DSL gateway can only see my host IP address (192.168.2.11) but cannot see my bridged connection from my VM (192.168.2.21)

I am able to see both if I connect it to the ethernet card instead of wireless.

My ultimate goal is to all 4 IP addresses meaning 2 from my PC (Host - 192.168.2.10 and Bridged - 192.168.2.20) and 2 from my laptop (Host-192.168.2.11 and Bridged- 192.168.2.21) recognized from my DSL router and that setup static routes to route all traffic through my bridged connection to my custom network on VMNET2. This theoretically should be possible.

Thanks for your help.

[Peter_vm]

What do you mean by "my .. gateway can only see"?

Even if gateway can "see" all four IP's, they will be on the same networks segment, therefore no routing possible. Especially theoretically. Only host or VM can reach both networks, therefore routing can (and should) be done there.

[dafunkphenom]

I'm addressing this post in another thread now that I have found a few old postings that were somewhat helpful. My new thread is http://communities.vmware.com/thread/112191

My wireless router can only see the MAC address of my physical WIFI adapter not my virtual PCNet adapter whenin bridged mode. The IP address is a bit deceiving because it appears that sometimes the WIFI router picks up the static IP of my PCNet adapter - 192.168.2.21 and sometimes it picks up the IP address of the physical NIC - 192.168.2.11 but the one consistent thing is that it only picks up one MAC address, the one assigned to my physical adapter.