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bgertzfield
Commander
Commander

Discussion of VMware Fusion 1.1.1 and later wireless networking issues

Hi folks,

This thread is to discuss any remaining wireless networking issues in VMware Fusion 1.1.1. This is a continuation of the old discussion of 1.0 and 1.1.0 wireless networking issues from .

Thanks to your help in the previous thread, we think we've tracked down the remaining issue where virtual machines set to used Bridged networking sometimes fail to get a DHCP address when your Mac is connected to certain wireless routers. Stay tuned for more updates!

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berck
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks Ben

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mykmelez
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I'm not sure if this is wireless-related, since I don't use a wired connection, but NAT DNS mostly stops working about once a day <http://communities.vmware.com/message/733256>. When it happens, DNS queries don't all fail consistently, they just start timing out for the most part. Every time it happens, I have to run |sudo /Library/Application\ Support/VMware\ Fusion/boot.sh --restart| on the host to get things working again. Sometimes I have to do this twice or even three times a day.

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shortspecialbus
Contributor
Contributor

I'm having the same problem that PistolPeet was in the previous thread. Specifically, I can't get an IP address in bridged mode.

Specs:

vmware fusion 1.1.1

MacBook Pro 2.16 GHZ

Mac OS X 10.5.2

2GB RAM

the vmware system is WinXP SP2

Things work fine in NAT mode except for the fact that I need bridged mode to forward a few ports to the XP system living in vmware Smiley Happy

From my dhcpd logs:

Mar 10 07:40:28 rodimus-prime dhcpd: DHCPDISCOVER from 00:0c:29:35:ab:3a via xl0

Mar 10 07:40:28 rodimus-prime dhcpd: DHCPOFFER on 192.168.1.12 to 00:0c:29:35:ab:3a via xl0

Mar 10 07:40:33 rodimus-prime dhcpd: DHCPDISCOVER from 00:0c:29:35:ab:3a via xl0

Mar 10 07:40:33 rodimus-prime dhcpd: DHCPOFFER on 192.168.1.12 to 00:0c:29:35:ab:3a via xl0

Mar 10 07:40:41 rodimus-prime dhcpd: DHCPDISCOVER from 00:0c:29:35:ab:3a via xl0

Mar 10 07:40:41 rodimus-prime dhcpd: DHCPOFFER on 192.168.1.12 to 00:0c:29:35:ab:3a via xl0

Mar 10 07:40:57 rodimus-prime dhcpd: DHCPDISCOVER from 00:0c:29:35:ab:3a via xl0

Mar 10 07:40:57 rodimus-prime dhcpd: DHCPOFFER on 192.168.1.12 to 00:0c:29:35:ab:3a via xl0

And so on. So, the DHCP server is getting the requests and offering, but vmware either isn't seeing them, or is getting them in a way that it can't understand. Now, the wireless station is a netgear station, but DHCP is turned OFF on that, and everything routes through an OpenBSD firewall, which is running dhcpd and pf and such. The MAC that is requesting the IP is different than the MAC of the macbook pro, and corresponds to the MAC that windows XP thinks it has. I made a separate entry in my DNS and my dhcpd.conf to give the 192.168.1.12 address to that MAC, although it didn't make a difference before I put that in.

If you need any further information, let me know.

Thanks!

-stefan

edit: For what it's worth, if I manually specify an IP, bridged mode seems to work fine. So that is ok as a temporary fix for me for now.

edit2: Also, I'm not yet sure if it's affecting anything other than ICMP, but if I ping the vmware guest IP from a different computer on the network, I get a ton of duplicate packets. Example:

......

64 bytes from 192.168.1.12: icmp_seq=0 ttl=128 time=434.372 ms (DUP!)

64 bytes from 192.168.1.12: icmp_seq=0 ttl=128 time=434.898 ms (DUP!)

64 bytes from 192.168.1.12: icmp_seq=0 ttl=128 time=438.942 ms (DUP!)

64 bytes from 192.168.1.12: icmp_seq=0 ttl=128 time=439.386 ms (DUP!)

64 bytes from 192.168.1.12: icmp_seq=0 ttl=128 time=439.734 ms (DUP!)

64 bytes from 192.168.1.12: icmp_seq=0 ttl=128 time=440.705 ms (DUP!)

64 bytes from 192.168.1.12: icmp_seq=0 ttl=128 time=443.265 ms (DUP!)

--- cyclonus-vm.easykill.org ping statistics ---

1 packets transmitted, 1 packets received, 253 duplicates, 0.0% packet loss

round-trip min/avg/max/std-dev = 5.828/230.641/443.265/125.589 ms

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shortspecialbus
Contributor
Contributor

bump because resolution to this is partially required for me to buy it, and my 30 day trial is running out.

Thanks!

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

We're hopeful we have a fix for this issue which we expect to be able to share after further testing. Hang in there. Thanks for your patience.

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shortspecialbus
Contributor
Contributor

Excellent, glad to know you guys are aware and working on a fix.

Thanks!

-stefan

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PistolPeet
Contributor
Contributor

If you need another tester, fire me an email.

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robob
Contributor
Contributor

I am evaluating to move from Parallels which has keyboard and other issues with Fedora 8. I cannot get networking in the vm while using wifi on my Mac Book Pro 17" core duo.

Very frustrating that both products refuse to properly run Fedora 8! I need this to work to test something for a client.

Good luck on the fix.

Robert A. Ober

PS: I am an IT Consultant who has been recommending Parallels. I am willing to test the fix.

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mzw7lm
Contributor
Contributor

Okay here is what I am finding:

I am running a MacBook with OS X version 10.5.2

Processor : 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

Memory: 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

I have a AirPort Extreme Card.

I am on an internal wireless that is filtering via mac address using WPA2 TKIP with a PSK.

The wireless is on its own VLAN running through a Cisco 4400 Wireless Access Controller via LWAPPs

The DHCP is given out by a Cisco 3570 switch that the 4400 is connected to

I have regiestred both the mac address for the AirPort and the mac addres for the Windows XP VM Fusion card.

I am running a Windows XP SP2 machine in VM Fusion Version 1.1.1 (72241) using network binding

The problem is that the windows XP machine is not getting a DHCP address.

Situations that do work:

1. Static assignment of the NIC in the WIndows XP machine and it works just fine and can get to the internet due to deploment constratins this is not an option

2. Wired connection through our corporate LAN - A Cisco 3560 connected to the Cisco 3570 for dhcp - it works just fine getting a DHCP address and can get to the internet

3. A home wireless situation, connecting to a Linksys router / access point that is running DHCP, it works just fine getting a DHCP address and can get to the internet

So the question is how can I get the Windows XP machine to get a DHCP address with network binding. NAT will not work due to corporate requests and reasons.

Thank you,

Bruce Jarrett

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

If the Cisco 4400 is configured so that it won't support more than one DHCP instance per wireless client, there's nothing that we can do about it, to the best of our knowledge.

One diagnostic test is to run a packet sniffer on your MacBook's en1 interface, while the guest requests a DHCP address. If you see the DHCP replies in the sniffer on the host's en1, but the VM doesn't see the replies, then it's our bug (which we're still testing a fix for, but we have high confidence this is something we can handle correctly). If you don't see the DHCP replies in the sniffer on the host's en1, then our hands are tied.

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JimmyTheHuman
Contributor
Contributor

I have Leopard, 10.5.1, fusion 1.1.1 and XP SP2 in a VM.

My wireless connections works perfectly in Mac.

XP appears to have a live net connection, the icon in the tray has disappeared. I have an IP from DHCP and i can ping it within XP. But i have no other connectivity. If i switched to wired networking on the mac and restart the VM network (why isnt there a restart network button in this software?) then everything works fine.

I didnt think anything had changed.Is this the same symptom others are having, or is mine something else?

Appreciate any tips or suggestions.

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berck
Contributor
Contributor

Yep, almost the exact same problem I have too. Works fine on a wired network, but not on the wireless. I get the IP address, but can't connect to the internet.

One work around is to use a static IP address on the wireless. It works fine then. It has something to do with the MAC address, wireless access point and the router.

Another work around is to use a shared network instead of a bridged one. Which is fine for me at home, but not at work.

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fmlogue
Contributor
Contributor

I have been having problems with my wireless connection to the Internet using Leopard . I suddenly realized it started when I got Fusion and used it to connect to our netbeui LAN. ( I don't ever connect to the internet on the Windows side). I have a core 2 duo Mac Mini. I connect to our LAN via an ethernet cable and I use airport to connect to the internet. Last evening I had to plug in the ethernet cable to the internet router because the wireless connection was being dropped so badly as to make it impossible to download anything. The dropped connections continued today. I turned off the computer for a few minutes, and rebooted, and that fixed the problem for about 15 minutes. In searching for some answers, I found that one person had discovered that if he shut down all the VMware background programs, after quiting Fusion, by entering "sudo /Library/Application\ Support/VMWare\ Fusion/boot.sh --stop" into the terminal, the problem went away. When I tried it, it seems to have worked. All the VMnet background programs listed in the Activity monitor were gone. I am using Fusion 1.1.1 and this is what was listed in the system log of the Console: "vmnet: Initializing module (version 1.1.1fc2, build-72241)". This problem makes it very difficult to use the Internet while using Fusion to run our Visual Foxpro order entry program. Is there a fix in the offing?

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

Hi everyone who's watching this thread -- Fusion 1.1.2 is now available and includes a fix for the AirportbridgingDHCP compatibility problem with certain routers.

Please update, and I hope it'll fix your problems.

Note that if your router or access point doesn't support more than one DHCP client per MAC address, that's beyond our control, but other than routers with this policy, we don't know of any DHCP problems now.

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berck
Contributor
Contributor

I need further testing, but so far, it appears to have resolved my issues. I'll need to spend some more time with it to see if its really true.

Thanks a bunch.

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

Don't forget to pinch yourself!

Glad the initial tests look good.

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shortspecialbus
Contributor
Contributor

After installing the update I get the following error when trying to start my VM:

File not found: Boot Camp partition.vmdk

I searched for the file and it appears to be gone. Do I have to set up a new VM again?

-stefan

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berck
Contributor
Contributor

It is looking really good. I have seen just one minor issue. If the OS doesn't have much activity, say I leave it for an hour or so. When I come back, I can't get to the internet. After about a minute of trying, the network is back up and running. I do have access to the local network, its just that the router won't let it get through for about a minute. I noticed it on startup today too. This maybe a cisco issue at work. Once access to the internet is granted, its completely fine until I let the OS activity drop off.

Very impressed on how the drivers were updated on all three of my VM OSes. Even with Linux, but it didn't tell me to reboot. I just did it, and everything started working just fine.

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

Stefan, you shouldn't have to set up a new VM, but please post a new topic about this, so it doesn't get lost in the discussion of networking issues. Thanks!

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