Internet Access from VMWare Workstation on a VMNet

[MTPBrian]

I have VMWare Workstation 12. I have three images on VMnet10, that all talk to each other fine. the first is a DC with and IP address of 10.0.0.1 and runs DNS for the domain. The second is a base image with no specific role with an IP address of 10.0.020, the third is a server running SQL Server and SharePoint with an IP address of 10.0.0.10. These two servers point to DNS and default gateway of the domain controller 10.0.0.1.

I need the SQL/SharePoint Server to have Internet access, so I added a second NIC and enabled DHCP client on the IP4 properties which gives me Internet access, but can no longer authenticate from within SQL / SharePoint with the DC. It seems like it should be easy to not break the domain communication between the three images, and get access to the Internet from at least one of them, but I'm not able to determine how to do this.

Could you please share the steps necessary for me to complete this configuration, where the SQL/SharePoint server is able to access the Internet, yet still authenticate through the DC on the VMNet10?

Thanks so very much in advance...

Brian

[gimmely]

I'd recommend to use NAT(VMnet8), instead any Host-only as VMnet1/10/etc., which has many examples posted/published online.

[MTPBrian]

So, I've set the DC, to NAT which is supposed to use the internal DHCP server to provide it an IP address, but that image is not able to connect to the Internet.

Also, how do I configure the other two images? NAT, Host, Bridge? I searched for the articles you mentioned and tried a few things based on them, but nothing that was a step-by-step.

Ideas?

Not sure why this is so difficult...

...Brian

[GaneshNetworks]

Check and play around in default gateway and routes on your SQL VM.

[RJB3ST]

Hi Brian,

As Gimmely has said you will want to use NAT rather than your current Host Only Nics. So swap over each network adapter to NAT on the VMs.

Once you have changed to NAT on each VM you will want to configure the settings by going Edit > Virtual Network Editor in VMware Workstation. Through there you will be able to set the Subnet IP (10.0.0.0) and Subnet mask (255.0.0.0) and then turn off Local DHCP so that the VMs get an IP address from your DC VM, rather than from VMware Workstation.

Once that’s configured see if you can access the internet and if the VMs still get DHCP from your DC.

Kind Regards,

RJ

[gimmely]

It's only my guess that you're doing this for the first time, as I spent quite some time in learning during mine.  But, I believe that you'll say it's quite simple and easy when you look at it in retrospect after you've made it work.

Anyway, more questions and suggestions to you:

1. You said "... the DC, ... which is supposed to use the internal DHCP server to provide it an IP address ...".  Based on my understanding, DC has to have a fixed IP, which seems to be the case in your original post.  So, I don't know if this is a mix-up.

2. To make it simple, which you can find discussions on the very same subject in this community/forum, you can/should set your three VMs as below, provided that the NAT's subnet IP is 192.168.x.0

VM1/DC:   192.168.x.10

VM2:          192.168.x.11

VM3/SQL: 192.168.x.12

You want to avoid 192.168.x.2, which is the default gateway for your NAT.

Of course, you can try to use DHCP on VM2/3 if you want to.

3. You should disable all firewalls on all three VMs, which can definitely rely on/use the firewall applied to your host, which may be using the firewalls on your LAN/router/etc.

You should start to make VM1/DC connect to the internet, which should be quite simple and easy.  Then, you can join VM2/3 to your (virtual) domain.

[MTPBrian]

Hi RJ,

Thanks so much for your assistance.

I've set all the VM adapters to NAT, and I've set the NAT subnet address to 10.0.0.0 with subnet mask 255.0.0.0 for VMNet8 through the Virtual Network Editor. Also while in there I chose VMNet8 and deselected Use local DHCP service to distribute IP address to VMs.

I logged into each image and set the IPv4 properties on each images NIC to Obtain IP address automatically?

Restarted everything and they were all very slow starting up, but they started. I ran ipconfig and they had 10.0.0.x addresses, was able to open SQL Server management studio to verify still communicating with DC from SQL/SharePoint image. Opened up second tab in IE and browsed to Google.com so it looked like it worked.

Went to kitchen for lunch, for about 20 minutes and tried to access Internet again, no reboot or anything, and it says you're not connected to Internet. I checked IP address and it is showing 169.254 addresses now.

So your post, and suggestion worked, but for some reason it won't pickup the VMware 10.0.0.x addresses, even after a reboot, it is only giving me 169.254 addresses and no internet access again.

I have disabled the three firewalls on the Windows Server 2012 R2 images.

I checked on the host operating system, which is Windows 7, and it shows VMNet8, with an IP address of 10.0.0.1, with subnet mask of 255.0.0.0, and no default gateway entry, and nothing in DNS.

So were there and gone, any ideas on what is preventing it from picking up a 10.0.0.x address and why it switched to DHCP address instead?

I promise you all, I'm not totally ignorant as I sound in this forum. I am just not as familiar with VMWare as I should be, and getting a bit frustrated on what I thought would be an easy setup process.

Thanks again in advance for your help...

...Brian

[RJB3ST]

Hello Brian,

So a few quick questions as I'm off for a few days on holiday in a second.

Does your DC VM have a static IP and the network settings are all configured correctly, so it's DNS server is its own IP in network configuration. Default gateway explained below.

Have you created a DHCP scope between (10.0.0.20-10.0.0.100) let's say and then I presume have made reservations for VMs that you want to be a certain IP. I would recommend using a static IP for your SQL/Sharepoint VM as you don't want it changing addresses.

If you go back into virtual network editor, and go NAT settings you can see the default gateway address (called Gateway IP) which you could add to the configuration for static hosts and scope.

See how that goes

kind Regards,

RJ