Fusion 12.2 breaks otherwise properly working networking in Fusion 12.1.2

[jsbattig]

I have an OpenWRT vm running in Fusion 12.1.2. This OpenWRT vm creates a tunnel using OpenConnect to a VPN server.

My OpenWRT vm has a single NIC card using a custom network configured as:

- Allows connection to external network via NAT

- No need for port forwarding

- Subnet IP 172.16.9.0 with mask 255.255.255.248 (smallest supported network in VMware)

- With Fusion 12.1.2 there's no setting to enable DHCP, but it appears to work by default. My vm receives the IP 172.16.9.2 upon booting up.

I use this vm to tunnel specific subnets through it while other subnets I leave alone and are routed locally. The reason why I do this is because this VPN provides routing for a mesh of networks including some of my local subnets, so if I were to connect to this VPN directly and tried to use some of the local subnets I will be routed thorough this VPN adding about 200ms latency to the local connections.

Rather than doing that, I turn on my vm, connect to this remote VPN and add a few static routes targeting this vm running on Fusion as a my gateway.

Well, since upgrading to 12.2 all of this simply doesn't work anymore. The vm is pingable, it connects to the remote vpn, I can ping from the VM itself to the target subnets I'm trying to route to but when used as a gateway from the host this vm it's like a ghost.

Packets simply doesn't flow into the vm.

It appears as if something fundamental changed with the networking layer and this local VM can't be used as a gateway as I could do it before the update.

I rolled back to 12.1.2 and my vpn gateway is back to life again, so I can definitively confirm something was changed (broken?) with the upgrade from 12.1.2 to 12.2.

Not only that, before I could configure the VM with a static IP address if I wanted. Now if I enable DHCP on the preferences/network config for this network, vmware refuses to recognize the statically assigned IP address, only DHCP assigned IPs are recognized.

[jsbattig]

Adding more color to my experience with Fusion 12.2, I'm close to declaring it a disaster.

Three more issues:

1 - VM significantly slower to start and while working they are not as smooth to operate as 12.1

2 - VMware developers really messed up the networking layer badly. Not only did they break the ability to use a vm as a gateway on the host, but also they broke DHCP. I fired up my Windows VM when trying (again) 12.2 only to discover there was no way I could find where my vm will get an IP via DHCP (tried NAT, Bridge, custom networks, etc). I could not either assigned a fixed IP and allow it to be visible to the network. At the same time, I had a Linux VM running OpenWRT working fine on a dual-network config using NAT and a custom netwotk. Downgraded back to 12.1 and my Windows vm network came back to life

3 - vmrun applet doesn't work anymore when called form a context such as Viscosity events running AppleScript (using JAX). If the same JAX is running directly from the AppleScript IDE, it works. This script starts the OpenWRT if not running. I use this as part of a pre-connection Viscosity script so rather than trying to use my OpenWRT as a gateway I rather create a local VPN connection to it, Viscosity pushes the routes I needed and the VM opens another VPN connection to the remote resource. This was my attempt to workaround the bug introduced by VMWare which makes a vm not capable of acting as a gateway since 12.2

Had to rollback back again to 12.1, which means I won't probably upgrade my laptop to Monterey anytime soon. I'm concerned the upgrade will make 12.1 unusable...

[tcataldo]

Same here on bigsur + 12.2.

nat settings do not work. host <-> vm networking works but "nat" (vm to 1.1.1.1) does not.

The new mtu setting is not effective & is not even saved.

[jsbattig]

Is someone from VMWare reading the forums or is everybody too busy with the carnage from the Dell spin-off?

VMWare, you still have clients. In fact, as a business we recently doubled down on VMWare moving all of our hyper-v workloads to V-Sphere? Should I regret I signed off that move? 

[mappoint]

>>Fusion 12.2 breaks otherwise properly working networking in Fusion 12.1.2

Same here!

And 12.2.1 dost not fix it.