Connect a physical PC to the VMnet8(NAT) network?

[MattDav]

I have a workstation running Windows 7 Enterprise x64.  Running Vmware Workstation 9, it's hosting a collection of servers and workstations, a bit of a test domain.  When I built this I didn't envision needing to ever connect it to an outside network connection, except for internet connectivity.  That's changed.

I now have a need to have a laptop connected on the same NAT network so I can add them to this test domain and have them pull group policy, before taking them off that network for testing in the wild.

Is this done easily?

The workstation has 3 NIC's.  One is connected to the DSL, one is dedicated for DirectAccess public IP's, and the other is currently unused.

Can I somehow configure this NIC to allow connectivity to the VMnet8(NAT) network?

[MattDav]

I mean worse case I thought of using a USB Wifi card and using software to turn it into an access pont on one of the VM's but I'm sure there is a better way?

[dariusd]

Hi MattDav, and welcome to the VMware Communities!

I haven't tried this myself at all, but I would have thought that one could create a network bridge on the Windows 7 host between the vmnet8 network and your otherwise-unused host Ethernet adapter to achieve what you're after.  There are all sorts of possible reasons why it might not work, but it might just be worth a try...

If that fails, there's the total overkill solution: Create a new bridged network in VMware Workstation (configure it to bridge specifically to your spare host NIC) and then create a VM with two virtual NICs, one on the NAT network and the other bridged to your host NIC, and then configure Ethernet bridging in the OS inside the VM... :smileygrin:

Please do let us know if you find success with this!

--

Darius

[MattDav]

No that didn't work.  I openend a ticket with Vmware but so far the best response have had is to put all the virtual PC's back on bridged network.  If I was going to start over, I would.  This was intended to be a DirectAccess POC that went from just needed to be in a virtual bubble, to needing to be accessible from the internet and with physical laptops.  My IPs are now locked into the AD DC and AD RMS servers so my only way to go back bridges is to reconfigure my DSL router to use the same IP range as VMNET8 was using.

Not the end of the world.

But my first stab and switching this back to Bridge isn't working out so well.  I've built 2 new VMware Windows 8 and 7 workstations set both to the default bridged connection, and to a custom VMNET9  Bridged network.  With the VM NIC set to either of these, the VM can't contact the DHCP server.  The host PC and test laptop are both working with this routers DHCP server fine.