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Christopher2222
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Setting up a virtual Network - need some help

I need a some simple straight forward steps to set up a virtual network to communicate between my host computer and my virtual computer.

The documentation is really not very clear. I've set up my virtual machine to be a host only network, that's as far as I've gone. I can't decipher the manual in order to enable me to access the virtual machines folders/disk from the host. Firstly I've never set up a network before, I've read the manual on it but it's a little confusing. Could someone please give me some step by step instruction help. I've searched the web and the info is sparse at best.

Also, if I want to run thinApp from my host on my virtual machine. How would I go about doing that? Could someone walk me through the steps?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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AWo
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No, there's no need to disable one or both of them.

VMnet 8 is the NAT network. This is also serverd by the DHCP server but it has a different IP range. If you use this type for your vNIC your guest will be hidden from the outside and the host acts as a proxy and NAT device. That means if you guest sends packets out they will appear as packets from the host to other systems. Only answers to these packets are routed back to the guest. You can't connect to the guest from outside systems as it is hidden. If you need to connect to the guest using NAT you have to configure the VMware NAT service to reroute specific ports to the guest. Port 80 for a webserver on the guest, for example.


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AWo
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One question before:

Shall the guest be available on thephysical network, as well, or should it be a private connection between host and guest?


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Christopher2222
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No it doesn't need to be available on the physical network. Just a private connection between the host and the guest.

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AWo
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I reference to a Windows host if nothing else is stated.

By default installing VMware Workstation creates a "host-only" network called "VMnet1". Under a Linux host you're asked if you want to create it. The host NIC which is connected to this network is called VMnet1, too.

To provide plug-and-play in this isolated virtual network a VMware DHCP service is installed (and should be running). During the installation your physical network connection is scanned and VMware chooses a non existing IP network range for this VMnet1 network, beginning with 192.168.

To connect host and guest you only need to add a vNIC to your guest and to choose "host-only" as the type. You find this setting in the guest hardware options dialog when the vNIC is selected. By the way, you can change this setting while the guest is running. But make sure that the IP addresses fit if you change the type and thereby putting the guest to different virtual or physical network.

You can set a static IP address in the guest from the VMnet1 IP network range (check under the VMware Workstation network setup (Edit > Virtual Network Editor... > Summary) or use "ipconfig /all" for Windows or "ifconfig -a" for Linux to determine the IP network range used) or use simply use DHCP in the guest (note: the VMware DHCP server service must be running).

That's all.


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vExpert 2009/10/11 [:o]===[o:] [: ]o=o[ :] = Save forests! rent firewood! =
Christopher2222
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It's Windows XP. I have two that workstation automatically created vmnet1 and vmnet8 and I'm not quite sure why. Should I disable one of them?

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AWo
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No, there's no need to disable one or both of them.

VMnet 8 is the NAT network. This is also serverd by the DHCP server but it has a different IP range. If you use this type for your vNIC your guest will be hidden from the outside and the host acts as a proxy and NAT device. That means if you guest sends packets out they will appear as packets from the host to other systems. Only answers to these packets are routed back to the guest. You can't connect to the guest from outside systems as it is hidden. If you need to connect to the guest using NAT you have to configure the VMware NAT service to reroute specific ports to the guest. Port 80 for a webserver on the guest, for example.


If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful" answers/replies. Thanks!!

vExpert 2009/10/11 [:o]===[o:] [: ]o=o[ :] = Save forests! rent firewood! =
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Christopher2222
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So regarding running Thinapp from the host on the guest computer .... do I just go to my host and run it? How do I select it to scan the guest virtual machine and not the host?

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AWo
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Sorry, don't know about this. I suggest, as you have already marked this thread as answered, that you open a new one with only this question. Maybe you should get you computers connected first so that you can exclude any connection related issues.

vExpert 2009/10/11 [:o]===[o:] [: ]o=o[ :] = Save forests! rent firewood! =