VMWare Server, Win7 Host & Guest, VM network doesn't work at home, works at cafe

[KingGheedora]

I have a SonicWall TZ100 (I think) at home, which I plug into via Ethernet cable with my laptop.

The laptop is W7x64, running vmware server. I set up a guest VM, also w7x64. Both are Enterprise edition. I set up the VM NIC to "Bridged" in vmware. When at home, when I connect to the VM guest via vmware's remote console the VM doesn't have a network connection. But when I go to the local cafe and connect to their wifi and try the same thing the VM has a network connection that works just fine.

I tried changing the network from "Home" to "Public", while I was at home but that didn't help (thought it might be a windows firewall setting that was blocking something under "Home" mode). I tried connecting to my home wifi instead of using the wired Ethernet connection at home -- also didn't work.

What can I look at to try to fix this? Do you think it might be a setting on my router? If so, what should I check? I'm not sure what to look into.

 

[imagoon]

Is the VM started before you plug in? Most common issue is bridging to the wrong adapter. It seems that you might have tried that but have connect via wireless and then did and ipconfig /renew?

In the network tool you can configure what "bridged" actually means sometimes "auto select adapter" fails hard and you need to hard code it. In your case I normally have a couple of custom networks built where one is bridged to Ethernet and the other to wireless. Then I can flip the network on the fly. The VM should see a cable disconnect and reconnect so you can do it live.

 

[KingGheedora]

Is the VM started before you plug in? Most common issue is bridging to the wrong adapter. It seems that you might have tried that but have connect via wireless and then did and ipconfig /renew?

In the network tool you can configure what "bridged" actually means sometimes "auto select adapter" fails hard and you need to hard code it. In your case I normally have a couple of custom networks built where one is bridged to Ethernet and the other to wireless. Then I can flip the network on the fly. The VM should see a cable disconnect and reconnect so you can do it live.

What network tool are you referring to?

EDIT: I don't see any option in vmware server setup, when I'm adding/editing the NIC for a VM, that allows you to bridge to a particular NIC on the host. The only option is if you want to let vmware auto-generate a MAC addy, or if you want to specify one yourself.

 

[imagoon]

You don't have something like this?

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/vmware-server-networking.html

I haven't used "server" in awhile but that still exists in workstation 8.

 

[KingGheedora]

Ah, i found that -- didn't know that tool existed. But the problem now is that the checkbox for letting vmware auto-select which nic to bridge to is greyed out.

EDIT: Fixed this by running as admin.

 

[KingGheedora]

What's the diff between vmware workstation and server? Can I play VM's created in server in workstation?

 

[yinan]

Yes you can. I do not think they are even doing any more development on Server. Workstation 8 is a much better product.

 

[imagoon]

"Server" is closer to "esx for windows" while workstation was more for running VMs for tasks like development and the like. At least until workstation 8 where they added the ability to share VM's, run them as services with the gui closed and the ability to manage it via vsphere client...

 

[tfgrtr]

VMWare Server has been eol for a while now and has quite a few issues including support for IP6. I have it running on a laptop with Windows 7 and had to disable IP6 on all network adapters to get it to work.

 

[Nothinman]

Yes you can. I do not think they are even doing any more development on Server. Workstation 8 is a much better product.

VMware Server has been effectively dead for years, the last release was 3 years ago and it was end of support last year.

 

[xSauronx]

VMware Server has been effectively dead for years, the last release was 3 years ago and it was end of support last year.

seriously. use vmware workstation if you can, player if you have to, or esxi if you want to build a whitebox system.

ive got an esxi box and use workstation (free license as a student, so...why not) now and again.