Deterministic IP address for first VM on fresh Fusion installation?

[cookieme]

I'm looking to automate the initial bootstrapping of a development vm for a bunch of developers. By default, a fresh install of VMware Fusion with a **single** new virtual machine on the **NAT** network will obtain a DHCP lease from Fusion's DHCP server.

I could have the developers boot the linux iso and run `ip a` and note the vm's assigned IP address and then use it from their macOS host to do the bootstrapping via SSH. If possible I'd like to know before hand that the vm will be assigned a specific IP and then simplify the developers' lives by putting the IP in their `/etc/hosts`, so they can use something like `dev.local` to access their VM.

TLDR Is there a way to make sure that on a fresh Fusion installation the first VM will always have the same IP?

[continuum]

If I remember right you can specify the range of available IPs for the NAT-service.
This means that on a fresh installation the first IP that will be served is predictable.

Ulli

[cookieme]

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@continuum wrote:

If I remember right you can specify the range of available IPs for the NAT-service.
This means that on a fresh installation the first IP that will be served is predictable.

Ulli

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Are you suggesting that as part of the VMware Fusion deployment, the 

/Library/Preferences/VMware Fusion/vmnet8/dhcpd.conf

file would need to be modified to have a predictable IP range because I can't find anything in the GUI?

[cookieme]

It seems that modifying the "dhcpd.conf" file is no longer the way to do it since the DHCP server is controlled by Apple.

Maybe the solution is simply to parse "/var/db/vmware/vmnet-dhcpd-vmnet8.leases" once the VM is powered on 🤔