VMWare Fusion Bridged Network Issue

[amaterasu48]

Hello,

I'm having a problem connecting to the Internet when the guest OS uses bridged network. Here is my environment.

Mac OS X: 10.6.5

VMware Fusion: 3.1.2

Guest OS: Windows 7 Ultimate

The reason I want bridged network to work is that I want to be able to Remote Desktop into the guest Windows 7.

What's strange about the issue is that when I change the network mode to NAT, I can connect to the Internet. But when I change it to bridged network, the network icon that shows at the lower right corner on Windows 7 has exclamation mark indicating that it can't get out to the Internet.

Here are the things I tried.

• I tried bridged network on another Mac, and it works perfectly fine. So this issue is specific to the particular Mac.
• I checked firewall on the host Mac OS, and it's turned off.
• Guest OS is able to grab IP address from the DHCP server on my router.
• Hard coding the IP address didn't solve the problem.
• I deleted the network adapter device from the device manager and reinstalled it, but no luck.
• ipconfig /release and ipconfig /renew didn't do anything.
• I tried port forwarding by modifying nat.conf. I was able to telnet into 3389, but strangely I couldn't get into Remote Desktop from RDC.
• Just for the heck of it, I hard coded the host OS IP address, but it didn't make any difference.

Can anyone please help me out on this issue?

Thank you!

[a_p_]

Welcome to the Community,

I'm not too familiar with MAC and Fusion, so please don't mind me if I'm wrong.

I tried port forwarding by modifying nat.conf. I was able to telnet into 3389, but strangely I couldn't get into Remote Desktop from RDC.

Did you forward both, TCP as well as UDP?

... at the lower right corner on Windows 7 has exclamation mark indicating ...

Since you get an IP address from your router, I would rule out any issues in the VM. On Windows systems issues like this are often caused by e.g. VPN clients installed on the host!?

André

[amaterasu48]

Hello, Andre. Thank you for your reply.

Regarding port forwarding, yes, I did forward TCP and UDP. It looked like it was working because I could hit IIS on the guest OS when I forwarded port 80, but I just couldn't get Remote Desktop to work.

And regarding VPN client, the guest OS is a very clean environment. First, I tried Windows 7 64 bit edition and then I clean installed Windows 7 32 bit edition. Both have the same issue, so as you indicated, it's hard to think that VMs themselves have issues, but there must be something I need to do with the host OS.

But the thing is that the host OS (Mac OS X 10.6.4) has firewall turned off and it has no anti virus type of software installed.

I will keep digging into this issue...

Thanks!

[ColoradoMarmot]

Many wireless access points will only give a single IP address to a physical MAC address.  A workaround is to go wired instead (you'll need to turn off the airport).

If you have locations and/or 3G network software installed on the mac, remove all the locations other than Default (which are rarely necessary these days), and uninstall the 3G software (which screws up all sorts of things).

[amaterasu48]

Hello,

Thanks for your suggestion.

My host machine is directly connected to the router with cable, so wireless is not an issue.

I'm digging into this issue from time to time still though...

[harveygfl]

I am having same Problem...

Snow Leopard 10.6.5

Vmware Fusion 3.1.0

The question is...  Has anyone got Bridged networking to function on Windows7 ?

Is there is a setting inside of Windows7 that I am missing?

Bridged works with many diferent Flavors of Linux (Ubuntu, Mint etc...) But not with Windows 7 Ultimate.

NAT Functions properly, but my HDHomerun (Ethernet based TV Tuner) needs to be on the same network, The NAT puts the client on a different subnet so NAT does not work with HDHR .

If nobody has been able to to this, Perhaps a Update to vmware tools is needed.

[amaterasu48]

Hello,

I just installed an instance of Windows XP Professional to see if bridge network works, but the same issue still persists. At least in my environment, which guest OS I installed doesn't matter and bridged network doesn't let me get out to the Internet.

FYI

[ColoradoMarmot]

Can you ping an IP address?  It may be a DNS issue.

[harveygfl]

Not a Name resoultion issue, when i put the IP in Directly with Bridged networking 192.168.1.1 (Home router) No reply.

Since it works with NAT, Something with the Bridged feature not passing parameters properly because WIN7 Does not recognise the network when bridged but it does when it is using NAT.

look at the attachments, the only difference is i chage from na to bridged.

[amaterasu48]

Like I said in my previous post, the same issue is happening with Windows XP Professional, so I don't think it has to do with just Windows 7. Again, at least in my environment.

[harveygfl]

I remember something about promiscuous mode when i made a XP VM years ago.  I am not sure of the details, but i think thats what i had to do on  XP.

Does anyone remember this?

If you look at the Attacments from above, it leads me to think its a Windows Issue because it treats the NAT and Bridged Configurations as differently.  Bridged is treated as a Public Network and NAT treats the network as its Private (Work/Home).

Please note the 3rd octet from bridged .1 and the 3rd octet when using NAT is .52.

It Seems when you use bridged networking, the OS does not recognise the bridge as a path to obtain internet access.  I found this  http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100187... to create custom "network".

[ColoradoMarmot]

It's definitely something unique to your setup - all my Win7 and XP VM's work just fine with either bridged or NAT.

I presume you've tried shutting down the guest, rebooting the mac, rebooting the guest?  The only other idea is that the settings in the VM aren't correct (i.e. make sure it's still set to DHCP) or that your router isn't providing addresses.

Beyond that, I'm out of ideas.  Probably time for a support ticket.

[amaterasu48]

OK, so I figured this out.

To make it really short, my host machine is actually a hacintosh and so my network card driver was the culprit. I don't expect many people might find this helpful, but I will write what I did to resolve my problem anyway.

So I have a Gateway machine (Gateway FX Series FX6801-01 Intel Core i7 950(3.06GHz) 9GB DDR3) and I just couldn't get VMWare bridged network to work. It turns out that the network driver was what was causing the issue.

I installed the trial version of Parallels to see if I could get the bridged network to work on the guest OS. I had the same exact issue and I was 100% sure that my environment was the issue. Then, I started to dig into network settings of Mac OS X. I erased all the settings and recreated the network, but nothing worked. So I decided to look at driver. I tested one driver after another and finally I found that AppleRTL8169Ethernet driver from MultiBeast works perfectly in my environment.

I know my case doesn't apply to many people (well, maybe...), but I thought I'd share my experience here because I have spent so many hours trying to figure this one out.

Cheers,

[harveygfl]

Actually that makes perfect sense... Which KEXT did you originally have?

Do you know if i will  work with onboard 82567LM Controller found on a DX58So? 

When You used MultiBeast, Did you just download it and run it on your computer?

Did you use it when you orginally setup your system, the reason why I am asking i am wondering if there would be a conflict with a sytem already functioning that did not use it before.

[amaterasu48]

Hello,

I'm going to answer your question one by one. Please see my inline comment in blue.

Actually that makes perfect sense... Which KEXT did you originally have?

I had Intel82566MN.kext and I deleted it before I installed AppleRTL8169Ethernet.

Do you know if i will  work with onboard 82567LM Controller found on a DX58So?

I assume you asked me if I knew it (AppleRTL8169Ethernet) would work on your on-board Ethernet controller. If I understand correctly, I have the same motherboard as you do, so there is a good chance that it will work. Before you do anything though, please make sure you backup everything with TimeMachine so that you can always restore the system. TimeMachine saved my life several times during my journey on Hacintosh.

When You used MultiBeast, Did you just download it and run it on your computer?

Yes, I downloaded the latest version and ran it on my Hacintosh.

Did you use it when you orginally setup your system, the reason why I am asking i am wondering if there would be a conflict with a sytem already functioning that did not use it before.

Yes, I used it when I originally set up my system. If you are trying to solve the same problem that I had, I don't know if there would be a conflict. MultiBeast is a utility that installs drivers and some extra applications. It can also install bootloader, so if your system already has a different one, you may not want to blindly choose everything and install. But if you are just trying to get your Ethernet controller to work properly, I think MultiBeast can be used by just selecting the driver you want to install. Again, before you do anything, please make sure to back everything up! Good luck.

[harveygfl]

I think the MB will have a problem, its best to find the specific file and use the KEXT utility to do a manuall install. it looks like the program will screw up the bootloader.

[harveygfl]

Multibeast Screwed up the Boot Sector ...  Its been so long, I forgot the Boot Parameters. Need to Wipe the Disk and start from Scratch

Do you remember the Boot parameters?