Hello,
To give you some quick background we have been using VMware for about a year or two now as our development environment. It was perfect most of the time but on occasion the network bridging would just stop working for no apparent reason. After some digging we noticed that VMware had released an update so we would update and everything works again. A few months later the same situation would occur and again VMware had just released a new version a day or two ago. Well on Friday we get a call that the Dev servers weren't working so we upgraded to version 2.0 and everything appeared to be working again at the end of day Friday. Then by Monday after noon we get the call again that the Dev servers are inaccessible. We redownloaded the update when we noticed that the build numbers were different and everything seemed to work for a few hours but now we are back to the network bridging not working. I am getting the feeling that it is something simple that I am just missing but for the life of me I can't seem to figure it out. Any help would be very appreciated.
To be specific the issue we are having clients on the network are unable to ping, access, or otherwise reach any of the guest OS's. When I access the Guest systems through VMware they either say "Limited or no connectivity" or that they are connected because they have a static address. But even with a static adress the Guest OS's can't talk to each other or anything on the network and vic versa, even the host OS.
VMware version: 2.0 Build 116503
Host OS: Windows Server 2003 x64, Service Pack 2
Guest OS's: Windows Server 2003 x86, Windows XP x86 SP2, Windows Vista x86. (All Guest OS's have the same issue)
We see the problem every few months and as I sad above when we update to the newest version is seemed to fix the problem. Now however it hasn't fixed the issue and are currently stuck.
What seems to trigger the problem? Not sure, other then it seems to happen a few days after VMware releases a new version, nothing.
The host OS is connected to the network via a Gigabit switch which our whole server rack uses with no issues.
All of the Guest OS's are connected via Bridging which works most of the time.
For this problem we will start with the XP Machine since it is the least used currently.
Host OS ipconfig /all
Windows IP Configuration
Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : medbackup
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . : medici.com
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : medici.com
Ethernet adapter VMware Network Adapter VMnet8:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : VMware Virtual Ethernet Adapter for VMnet
8
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-50-56-C0-00-08
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.195.1
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
Ethernet adapter VMware Network Adapter VMnet1:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : VMware Virtual Ethernet Adapter for VMnet
1
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-50-56-C0-00-01
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.17.1
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom BCM5708C NetXtreme II GigE (NDIS
VBD Client)
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-19-B9-D1-7E-CF
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.1.1.16
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.1.1.51
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.1.1.200
Primary WINS Server . . . . . . . : 192.1.1.200
Guest OS ipconfig /all
Windows IP Configuration
Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : devxp
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . : medici.com
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : medici.com
Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : VMware Accelerated AMD PCNet Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-0C-29-F7-E9-9F
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.1.1.201
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.1.1.51
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.1.1.200
Copy of DevXP .vmx file
.encoding = "windows-1252"
config.version = "8"
virtualHW.version = "4"
scsi0.present = "TRUE"
memsize = "512"
ide0:0.present = "TRUE"
ide0:0.fileName = "Windows XP Professional.vmdk"
ide1:0.present = "TRUE"
ide1:0.fileName = "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Server\windows.iso"
ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-image"
floppy0.present = "FALSE"
Ethernet0.present = "TRUE"
displayName = "DevXP"
guestOS = "winxppro"
priority.grabbed = "normal"
priority.ungrabbed = "normal"
ide1:0.autodetect = "TRUE"
ide0:0.redo = ""
ethernet0.addressType = "generated"
uuid.location = "56 4d 9a ee c5 2b 32 51-f2 51 01 d3 59 f7 e9 9f"
uuid.bios = "56 4d 9a ee c5 2b 32 51-f2 51 01 d3 59 f7 e9 9f"
ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:f7:e9:9f"
ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0"
ide1:0.startConnected = "FALSE"
tools.syncTime = "FALSE"
autostart = "poweron"
workingDir = "."
extendedConfigFile = "Windows XP Professional.vmxf"
virtualHW.productCompatibility = "hosted"
tools.upgrade.policy = "manual"
vmotion.checkpointFBSize = "16777216"
ethernet0.networkName = "Bridged"
ethernet0.features = "1"
bios.forceSetupOnce = "FALSE"