VMware for Linux

[eusanpe]

Greetings,

I installed the vmware port for gentoo and I would like to know if I am doing something wrong. I configured it for bridged networking and I installed Windows XP as the guest. Everything starts ok upon startup within Linux but once I start Windows XP I get the automatic IP address assigned by XP under some 169.xxx.xxx.xxx network. I am under a DHCP network and my tcpip settings are set to access dhcp. My linux box accesses the dhcp server just fine. Am I leaving something out? I saw a post using Google and someone else had the exact same problem but no one responded.

Thanks.

[delta407]

It's possible your DHCP server's address pool is exhausted or something silly like that. Or, it could be keyed by MAC address, at which point VMware would have issues (as it uses a fake MAC).

Can you use a packet capturing program (like Ethereal, for which there's an ebuild) to see what's going on?
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I don't believe in witty sigs.

[eusanpe]

Hello,

I am still boggled with it. It isn't dhcp because I hardcoded an ip address on the same subnet as the linux host and it will not go out period. I tried to access the internet and just ping the gateway and nothing. I can ping the linux host and that is it. The bridge says it is up but I am skeptical. From the linux box, I can do anything on the network. Should there be a interface for vmnet0 in the routing table? I see one for vmnet1 and vmnet8.

[arkane]

well I only run vmnet8 myself, because thats all I need. I can run dhcp all I want with that setup.

I selected Yes for NAT (vmnet8) and no for hostonly networking. I have full access to all networking, and a samba server running locally in order to share between local and vmware sessions. (My own samba, I could never get their samba to operate right)

I have an interface for vmnet8 running 192.168.17.1 (a network I'm not using) and eth0 is 192.168.1.4 (locally, and both are netmasked to 255.255.255.0) The wizard took care of the IP numbering, although I would have chose another another IP if I was doing it like 192.168.2.1 to keep things more tidy (in my mind, in my mind...). As far as routing goes, I have one entry for the network of 192.168.17.0 for vmnet8.

One thing that bugs me though, you said that you did NOT set Windows to use DHCP and you hardcoded the IP in... but you still get the 169.x.x.x IP address?

[eusanpe]

Here is my scenario to help eliminate any confusion.

eth0=192.168.60.2 (assigned via dhcp)
eth0_gateway=192.168.60.1 (assigned via dhcp)
vmnet0=bridged to eth0 - ip (???)
vmnet1=192.168.61.1
vmnet8=192.168.62.1

I installed Windows XP and all the interfaces show up in Windows XP.
The interface driver is AMD PCNET Family PCI Ethernet Adapter

Local Area Connection=169.254.132.195 (assigned via XP)
Subnet Mask=255.255.0.0 (assigned via XP)
DHCP Enabled=Yes

Local Area Connection2=192.168.61.128 (assigned via vmware dhcp)
Subnet Mask=255.255.255.0 (assigned via vmware dhcp)
Default Gateway=blank (assigned via vmware dhcp)
DHCP Server=192.168.61.254 (assigned via vmware dhcp)
DNS Servers=192.168.61.1 (assigned via vmware dhcp)

Local Area Connection3=192.168.62.128 (assigned via vmware dhcp)
Subnet Mask=255.255.255.0 (assigned via vmware dhcp)
Default Gateway=192.168.62.2 (assigned via vmware dhcp)
DHCP Server=192.168.62.254 (assigned via vmware dhcp)
DNS Servers=192.168.62.2 (assigned via vmware dhcp)

==============================================
My Local Area Connection (LAC) ip should be 192.168.60.XXX. It should be assigned via the same dhcp server that the linux host uses but it isn't seeing it. I removed the vmnet1 and vmnet8 interfaces and hardcoded an ip address which is on the same net as the linux host. I was able to ping the linux host but nothing else. I couldn't ping the dhcp server, the gateway or anything else.
I put vmnet1 and vmnet8 back in and rebooted the XP server. The interfaces came up and I was able to ping everything and access the internet. I am trying to logon to my NT domain but I can't see it. I tried to hardcode the wins servers but to no avail.
Under the network properties for activity I see packets sent from all the interfaces.
For packets received nothing is shown for LAC but there is for LAC2 and LAC3.

I hope this clarifies things.

Thanks,
Tony

[arkane]

Wow, that is one convoluted setup you have there. (no offense of course)
Have you thought about just simplifying it and running NAT (vmnet8) and that is it?

As far as the dhcp that vmware provides, I've never used that, so I'm not even sure how it works. I've always installed my own dhcp server and used that.
I will show you my configuration files, and hopefully you can get some idea of how I have mine setup as.

Here is my /etc/vmware/vmnet8/nat file:
(all commented out stuff is taken out for brevity)

[eusanpe]

Arkane, thanks for your help. I'll give it a try tomorrow at work. I have never had this problem before.
Yea my setup is screwy but it was all vmware except the picking of the ip addresses for vmnet1 and vmnet8. I probably don't need Host-Only networking though. All I want to do is logon to my main corporate domain from my XP guest. I still can't figure out why my bridged interface doesn't work though. It used to in other versions. How will vmnet8 resolve netbios name of my domains? I added the two WINS servers to the IP configuration earlier and it still wouldn't resolve.

[arkane]

Sure thing, I give advice where I can.
vmware does some wierd things sometimes, thats why I go through the wizard the first time, and if things don't go right then... well.. heh... time to yank out the editor. (luckily I've never had to do that, everythings been simple and easy for me)
Host-only networking is probably something you don't need, your right. NAT should do you just fine for that. You should be able to log into your corporate domain with just that.
vmnet8 should resolve netbios through the normal resolution, and WINS is only brought into effect when it can't resolve it via the broadcast methods. (at least thats what I've thought. It's been a while since I've studied that section of the MCSE study guide I have a feeling it all has to do with the convolution of the interfaces and the internal routing table it sees. Once it's down to one interface, one route entry, it should (repeat: should) go through without a problem.
I used to log into the American Express internal domain via vmware occasionally myself, just like that. (god I hate Lotus Notes)

[eusanpe]

Well I had no luck with this. I removed vmnet1 and configured everything. I still cannot connect to my domain. I have tried to add my system to it but it can't be seen. I can ping my wins servers but that is all.
Why is there an interface configured for vmnet0 and why wouldn't it work? Does it normally work like it used to in earlier versions? I can access the internet with no problems through vmnet8.

I had it working a while ago with RedHat 7.1 or 7.2 and VMware 3.0 with no problems. It seems like I am the only one who has had this problem.

I'm lost!!

[arkane]

Honestly, I'm not sure why your having these problems
I've used the previous versions, but had issues occasionally.. it wasn't until this version (3.1) that I was able to actually "plug-n-play" the software. Tho I really wish I had a version of win4lin that ran on Gentoo, I liked that MUCH better for the little bit that I do in Windows. (even though it's limited to win9x)

As far as why vmnet0 was there, I think that has something to do with host-only networking. (communication only with the host machine) I may be wrong, but that's my understanding.

I'm out of ideas, bro.. I'm not sure why it's not doing it....

[eusanpe]

After messing around and coming up with no answers, I decided to try out another setup. The only difference is that I am not using a desktop at work but my laptop at home. I installed RH 7.3 and VMware 3.1.1 RPM from their website. I configured it for vmnet0 (bridge) and not vmnet1 nor vmnet8. I set it up and configured WinXP with dhcp enabled. I setup my router as a dhcp server. After looking at the network settings in XP, I have one interface for the vmnet0 interface and I checked my settings with ipconfig. Everything works great. This is the way it is supposed to work. The bridged interface working. I am going to delete Gentoo tomorrow at work and try RH 7.3 at work. I am not a big RH fan. If it does work then their is something wrong somewhere. I'll post my results tomorrow.

Tony

[eusanpe]

Well after scrapping Gentoo and installing RH 7.3 and VMware 3.1.1 on my desktop pc at work, the dang thing doesn't work either. I don't know what it could be. Maybe it is dhcp and the hardware address as you had previously said. I don't understand it. Well I will just have to spend the next couple of days compiling Gentoo again and messing with Crossover Office.

Thanks for all you help Arkane,

Tony

[arkane]

Sure, no problem.

As far as the dhcp/MAC address thing, when I was running vmware back when I worked at American Express they had their dhcp servers setup to work via MAC, also. Instead of using IP addresses from the network (their dhcp) I set it up to use internal IP addressing and NAT'ed everything. (on the same subnet of course, easily done because they used a standard /24 subnet)
Anyway, best of luck... glad to know it's a technical (network) issue, and not a software issue.

[Tuxisuau]

Is vmware working right in gcc3.2-only systems?
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IM me at tuxisuau@jabber.7a69ezine.org

[arkane]

I've heard of people using it in a gcc3.2 system, but there was something dealing with an update to glibc that broke it.. I'm not sure if that has been fixed or not. (gcc3.2 + glibc)

[eusanpe]

After messing around with this vmware, I finally figured out the reason it wasn't working and resolved it.
I needed to add my hostname to the "/etc/hosts" table. With the windows dhcp server we are using at work, my hostname info isn't added to this table, therefore my hostname is "localhost". I took my address from ifconfig -a and added it to my host table with a hostname and the dang thing worked like a champ. I had to do this before I installed my guest os.
Wow!! I'm in business. Hopefully this will help prevent someone else from going through the hell of removing and installing different OS's and trying to figure this out. Thanks again.

Tony

[Night_Phoenix]

I just recently installed VMware for Gentoo, running a WinXP guest OS, problem is the sound doesn't work. according to the VMWare people the SB Live! is not supported due to crummy drivers for the sound. does anyone know of a fix for this issue? I'd really love to get my Win XP sound and everything up and running so I can blast away at Diablo II again


Thanks
Night_Phoenix

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