Internet connectivity from guest OS

[GratisFlatus]

Experts,

Greetings, and thank you for taking the time to read and hopefully answer.

My environment:

New HP Core i7 laptop w/ 16gb RAM

VMWare Workstation 10.0.0 build-1295980

Windows 7 Ultimate, 64-bit, SP1

I'm running VMWare to lab stuff for work, well trying to at least. This is my home computer, on the home network, with no A/V installed, no Windows Defender, and no Windows Firewall. I connect wirelessly to the router with a static IP of 192.168.1.6 /24, primary DNS is also the .1 router

VMWare installed, VMNet1 using static 10.1.1.201 /24; VMNet8 is not configured.

Regardless of which guest OS being ran in a VM (various flavors of linux or WinXP/2003) I cannot get them talking to the internet. I have seen loads of others in an apparent similar situation, and despite best efforts to employ those recommended changes, I still cannot get connectivity outbound.

While I understand the concepts of NAT, sometimes the implementations of it absolutely befuddles me. Making adapter changes inside the VM (Bridged, NAT) does not resolve, in fact it makes things worse. I have implemented some changes on my wireless adapter as well to get things talking, still no joy. While typing this up, I did just have an epiphany of sorts. I employ MAC Filtering on my router (an allow list), and have not thought to add the VMNet MAC's to the list. I will do that now

At any rate, the end goal is simple:
I am looking to run multiple VM's in this lab setup, with each of them using this laptops' wifi adapter to gain access to the internet.

I am happy to provide screenshots or otherwise respond to additional configuration info requests.

Thank you, experts.

[a_p_]

Welcome to the Community,

>>> VMNet1 using static 10.1.1.201 /24; VMNet8 is not configured.

Did you manually change these settings? VMware uses 192.168.x.x/24 addresses for VMnet1 (Host-Only) and VMnet8 (NAT) by default. I'd suggest you open the "Virtual Network Editor" from the Start menu "As Administrator" and click the "Restore Default" button to see whether this fixes the issue, and lets you use the VMnet8 (NAT) network for the VMs.

André

[GratisFlatus]

Yeah I manually changed the settings to fit with the lab parameters.

VMNet1 is dedicated for management access (10.1.1.x /24);

VMNet2, 3, etc, get used for additional interfaces on each of the VM's, but all VM's have one interface in VMNet1 for mgmt purposes;

I did the 'Restore Default' as per your suggestion, and while it changed both VM1 and VM8's settings, it still does not allow the guest OS to get outside. In fact, it also stopped connectivity to the host machine. I made changes to both the VM config inside VMWare as well as on the htost computer network properties, all to no avail.

Right now I'm back to square 1, meaning on the host computer (laptop) VM8 is blank/unconfigured, VM1 is on the mgmt vlan (10.1.1.x), and the wifi is on its 192.168.1.x /24 setting. I did put VM1 on my home network on an unused IP, windows gave me some grief about having multiple interfaces w/ the same gateway, but i could ping a VM guest on their VM1 interface (did i even make any sense there?!?) but could not ping my wifi IP or beyond from the guest OS.

(SIGH)

This seems to be the pattern of the day. I'm a bit frustrated with this and other aspects of my day, and am setting this aside until tomorrow. I appreciate the assistance Andre, hopefully tomorrow will bear better fruit.

-GF

[GratisFlatus]

Well several days later and still no joy.

I also tried ICS and got the following:

"Internet Connection Sharing cannot be enabled.

A LAN connection is already configured with the IP address that is required for automatic IP addressing."

Which is a bunch of horse manure.

DHCP or static IP, same error.

Anyone else able to get this facacta thing to work? Surely this has been done before (and don't call me Shirley).....

[louyo]

If you want help troubleshooting, you could begin with a screenshot of your V. Network settings and the results of ipconfig/all on the host and the non internet connecting guest.

Lou

[GratisFlatus]

Roger that.

Will post tomorrow when I am back in town.

-GF

[GratisFlatus]

Sorry for the delay, life happened 😕

Anywho, here's the info as requested:

So there is the sum total of my VM and network configurations.
Screenshots of the VMNet1 and 8, plus Windows wireless settings; output of ipconfig /all plus ifconfig from my guest OS along with the guest OS VM settings and a ping to the host VM1.

Thanks for the eyes on this one

-GF

[digipeng]

GF,

1.     Is the laptop able to connect to the internet?

2.     Why is the laptop setup for static dns?

3.     Please provide a list of what virtual machine(guest) is connected to what network. ie guest one has 1 nic and it is connected to Vmnet1. another example guest 2 has 2 nics and nic 1 is connected to  VMnet1 and nic 2 is connected to VMnet2.

4.     Could you screen shot your virtual network editor. this is mine

DigiPeng

[GratisFlatus]

DP,

Thanks for the reply, here's the answers to your Q's:
1) Yes

2) Because (no, not trying to be a SA. It's either the IP of my home router, or google's. Is usually the router IP, I was toying with different changes in the config during troubleshooting)

3) In this specific example, the guest OS has 1 NIC, in VM1; other VM's in this lab have multiple NIC's in various VM's, 1 of which is in VM1 on the same subnet. I am working on the one for now to get resolution to the connectivity issue, then will address the others.

4) No problemo, here it is (I have also reset to defaults as other forum posts have suggested)

[digipeng]

Gf-

for safety and sanity's sake, Do not change the default network settings on VMnet0,VMnet1,and VMnet8.  The band aide solution would be to connect your guest to vmnet8. That will not solve all the issues that are happening.

to get to the root of things it would require the requirements of labs network setup. That requires magic that I can assist with.

DigiPeng

Message was edited by: digipeng