VMware Communities
petrokalis
Contributor
Contributor
‎10-30-2007 09:45 PM

VMWare Fusion: Promiscuous mode support under Leopard?

I have an application that I am testing that is developed using the WinPcap library. I am running the Fusion 1.1rc1 and Leopard. Will Fusion ever support putting the vmnet adapter in promiscuous mode on Leopard?

If I run my Windows VM under Tiger, I can use promiscuous mode, but under Leopard I cannot.

Please help Smiley Happy

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rcardona2k
Immortal
Immortal
‎12-09-2007 10:00 AM

I guess you are relying on your application to tell you the NIC is in promiscuous mode, which it sounds can't be "faked"? Building scripts off network sniffing seems fairly low-level compared to using Expect scripts on Windows or UNIX which can record and answer prompts in telnet, etc. Anyway, I'm not trying to direct you off your application.

How about changing the type of virtual network adapter in Fusion? Fusion can emulated a stock Intel PRO/1000 adapter if you shutdown the VM and add this line to your VM's configuration file

ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"

Let Windows plug-n-play detect the new adapter, if necessary update the VMware Tools to pickup the Intel virtual NIC driver and try again.

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Toneman
Contributor
Contributor
‎12-09-2007 10:19 AM

Well I found the solution - the workaround IS WORKING as desired but the application is lying to me about promiscuous mode. However, there was also a filter setting that was somewhat obscure and it was that which was actually causing my issue.

Thanks for all of your help.

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rcardona2k
Immortal
Immortal
‎12-09-2007 10:27 AM

Glad it's working for you. I get similar "failures" in other utilities but promiscuous mode does work with the workaround like you described.

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bgertzfield
Commander
Commander
‎12-10-2007 03:43 PM

Hi folks,

Just wanted to give an update. We've developed a fix for this issue, and it's in testing now. We plan to prompt users for administrative credentials when the VM requests to enter promiscuous mode on one of its network adapters. You can disable this prompt if you don't want the VM to be allowed to go into promiscuous mode.

Thanks for your patience,

Ben

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eableson
Contributor
Contributor
‎12-11-2007 06:08 AM

That's great news. Looking forward to the next build.

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kramshoej
Contributor
Contributor
‎12-20-2007 11:18 PM

It might also be possible to use another Ethernet adapter?

I have successfully used a USB wireless adapter for running BackTrack2 as a virtual machine and tools like Kismet etc. using monitor mode on the adapter.

So I would imagine that a USB Ethernet adapter might be usable for both promiscuous mode and pentesting - and actually I should investigate since I do pentesting.

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dramsey
Contributor
Contributor
‎01-14-2008 09:03 AM

Hm. Been five+ weeks now-- admittedly with intervening holidays-- and still no fix? The "run as root" doesn't work for me; heck, it would help just to be able to configure VMWare to use the second Ethernet port on my Mac Pro. As it is I've been unable to use my Red Hat Linux 64 installation for more than two months, and that's getting kind of...irritating.

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bgertzfield
Commander
Commander
‎01-28-2008 10:52 PM

The fix for this issue is now available in VMware Fusion 1.1.1, now available for free download:

http://www.vmware.com/download/fusion/

Fusion 1.1.1 prompts the user if the guest tries to go into promiscuous mode. Promiscuous mode is not actually enabled until you authenticate as an administrator.

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