Setting up connection between two VMs on VMware Player

[shailesht]

Hi,

I have a host machine running Windows 7, which is connected to my corporate intranet. On this machine, I have two guest OSs on VMware Player:

VM1 - Running Windows Server 2003, registered in my corporate intranet

VM2 - Running CentOS 5, not registered in my corporate intranet.

The second of the two is a pre-packaged, fully-operational VM for running a complex database system that has been downloaded from the software provider.

I need to configure the environment such that an application on VM1 can connect to the database running on VM2.

At the moment I can do the following operations successfully -

* Ping from host machine to VM1 and vice-versa

* Ping from host machine to VM2 and vice-versa

* Ping from VM2 to VM1

However, I am unable to ping from VM1 to VM2.

Can someone please explain why this is the case? Also, please suggest me on the easiest way to get this environment working. I would prefer to do minimum fiddling with the VMs as they run important applications. Also, it is not possible to register VM2 on my intranet, though that would solve the problem.

Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to read and response.

EDIT: Just noticed that I am able to access intranet restricted websites through VM2.

[NickMarshall9]

Hi,

By the sounds of things you can get outbound web traffic on your Cent OS VM, therefore the network settings are working.

Also if you've managed to join your Windows VM to the domain, the network settings are working.

Based on what you've explained I would say a firewall on the Cent OS VM is preventing incoming connections (pings and DB connections).

Can you explain a little more about this "pre-packaged" VM? Who provided it, do they have documentation on what is installed in the OS and it's configuration? Do you have root level access to the underlying OS etc?

Cheers,

[hbato]

Hi Shailesht,

Yes, I have to agree with NickMarshall. This seems to be more on a firewall problem on VM2 (inbound) since we can ping VM2 to VM1 and VM2 can access your intranet. Check your firewall settings if it allows ICMP.

Regards, Harold

[shailesht]

Hi Nick/hbato, thanks for the response!

I have disabled the firewall on VM2 complete, so that cannot be the problem.

I did some more reading and got the following info:

VM1 has a Bridged network adapter, so acts as an independent computer on the external network.

VM2 has a NAT (Network Address Translator) network adapter which allows it to share the host's IP address. This is what enables the VM to access intranet resources as well as ping VM1.

The Help documents for VMware Player states the following for NAT network adapters - "In the default  configuration, computers on the  external network cannot initiate  connections to t...

This is probably what's causing the failure when trying to connect to VM2.

Any idea how to modify these configurations?

Nick, this is the "pre-packaged" VM I was talking about - http://www.greenplum.com/community/downloads/database-ce/. Guess my terminology was bad. I have root level access, but don't have much information about its configurations.

Thanks!

[NickMarshall9 · Accepted solution]

Ahhhh presto! Easy fix!

All you need to do is edit the hardware settings for VM2 and change the network adapter.

RightClick the VM, go into settings and then change the network adapter from NAT to Bridged

See this screenshot for a visual:

Does it work now?

Cheers,

[shailesht]

Worked perfectly Nick!
And made me understand the difference between the 3 different Network Adapter types too

Thanks again.

[NickMarshall9]

Glad to help!

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Cheers,

Nick.