VPC Shared Networking Problem

[claudel]

Hi

I'm having a strange networking problem with VPC 7.0.1.
and OS X 10.4.1

I am using "Shared Networking", but when I boot my Virtual
PC ( Windows 2000) I get a completely bogus IP address and
default gateway and DNS server address. I get:

192.168.131.64 for an IP address
192.168.131.252 for DNS server
192.168.131.254 for default gateway

and these are not even close to the addresses in use on the
host. The host IP is 192.168.1.101 with 192.168.1.1
for the gateway.

I get the same bad addresses when I release/renew the DHCP client.

Anybody have any ideas as to where the bad info is coming from?

At one point the shared networking was working properly, but I
am unsure when it started picking up the bad configuration info.

Thanks

Claude

 

[Steve Jain]

Hi

I'm having a strange networking problem with VPC 7.0.1.
and OS X 10.4.1

I am using "Shared Networking", but when I boot my Virtual
PC ( Windows 2000) I get a completely bogus IP address and
default gateway and DNS server address. I get:

192.168.131.64 for an IP address
192.168.131.252 for DNS server
192.168.131.254 for default gateway

and these are not even close to the addresses in use on the
host. The host IP is 192.168.1.101 with 192.168.1.1
for the gateway.

I get the same bad addresses when I release/renew the DHCP client.

Anybody have any ideas as to where the bad info is coming from?

That's the correct IP range for Shared Networking. Shared Networking
uses NAT, so a VM will never get an IP from the host network.

Shared Networking incorporates its own IP address, DHCP server, etc to
allow the VM to SHARE the same IP address on the real network as your
Mac.


--
Cheers,
Steve Jain, Virtual Machine MVP
Website: http://www.essjae.com
"This posting is provided "AS IS" with
no warranties, and confers no rights.
You assume all risk for your use.
I am not am employee of Microsoft."

 

[claudel]

That's the correct IP range for Shared Networking. Shared Networking
uses NAT, so a VM will never get an IP from the host network.

Shared Networking incorporates its own IP address, DHCP server, etc to
allow the VM to SHARE the same IP address on the real network as your
Mac.

Thanks for the reply.

I am unable to connect from the VPC to the outside Internet. I ran
ipconfig in a shell window on the VPC to attempt to diagnose the problem
and noticed the apparently OK addresses.

When I try to connect via Explorer to any website I get a DNS failure error.
Cannot find server or DNS Error
Internet Explorer
When I try and connect to AVG update site it fails with a generic network
failure error.

Any suggestions as to what I can look at to find out what is going on.
I have tried:
Rebooting the Virtual PC including shutting down Windows 2000 and turning off
the Virtual PC.
Starting and stopping the VPC with the firewall on the Mac host disabled and
allowing all traffic.
Reinstalling the VPC binaries
Reloading the VPC image from a backup.

It seems as if the NAT is not functioning correctly...

Thanks

Claude

 

[Steve Jain]

Thanks for the reply.

I am unable to connect from the VPC to the outside Internet. I ran
ipconfig in a shell window on the VPC to attempt to diagnose the problem
and noticed the apparently OK addresses.

When I try to connect via Explorer to any website I get a DNS failure error.
Cannot find server or DNS Error
Internet Explorer
When I try and connect to AVG update site it fails with a generic network
failure error.

Any suggestions as to what I can look at to find out what is going on.
I have tried:
Rebooting the Virtual PC including shutting down Windows 2000 and turning off
the Virtual PC.
Starting and stopping the VPC with the firewall on the Mac host disabled and
allowing all traffic.
Reinstalling the VPC binaries
Reloading the VPC image from a backup.

It seems as if the NAT is not functioning correctly...

IIRC, one thing you could try that may fix this is to replace the DNS
entry in Windows with the same one your Mac uses.


--
Cheers,
Steve Jain, Virtual Machine MVP
Website: http://www.essjae.com
"This posting is provided "AS IS" with
no warranties, and confers no rights.
You assume all risk for your use.
I am not am employee of Microsoft."

 

[claudel]

IIRC, one thing you could try that may fix this is to replace the DNS
entry in Windows with the same one your Mac uses.

I tried that too. No go. I also tried hardcoding the default gateway.

Weirdest part is that it was working fine after I upgraded the
host to 10.4.1 and VPC to 7.0.1 for about 10 days and then quit

I'm pretty sure it is some sort of DNS resolving issue but
I can't figure it out. I don't think that I did anything on
the host side to make it fail but I did start running named
as a cacheing server. I'm not certain if it worked after that
or not. I'll try disabling that too.

Thanks again

Claude

 

[claudel]

I tried that too. No go. I also tried hardcoding the default gateway.

Weirdest part is that it was working fine after I upgraded the
host to 10.4.1 and VPC to 7.0.1 for about 10 days and then quit

I'm pretty sure it is some sort of DNS resolving issue but
I can't figure it out. I don't think that I did anything on
the host side to make it fail but I did start running named
as a cacheing server. I'm not certain if it worked after that
or not. I'll try disabling that too.

Thanks again

Claude

Hi

It's fixed.

Two changes

While I was troubleshooting a different problem I had removed the
symlink on the host from /var/run/resolv.conf to /etc/resolv.conf,
making /etc/resolv.conf a file instead of a link.

I removed the file and restored the link.

I also hardcoded the addresses of my ISP nameservers in the
TCP/IP properties in the Networking properties.

The resolver in the Virtual PC started working...

I had put the nameserver addresses in the Networking properties
earlier without success, but I may have only used one instead of two.


Thanks for the help


Claude

 

[Alex]

Glad to see you fix the problem.

I'm curious about how a guest os (in my case, xp with sp2 on virtual pc
7.0.1) may ping its host (a Mac OS 10.3.9) or vice versa, without
connecting to any networks?

I use virtual switch as vpc's network setting. from the vpc I can see
it has a different ip address as the host's but cannot ping from/to
guest to/from host, even though I can ping the gateway.

I use a linksys 3-in-1 wireless router, with ip address in the range of
192.168.1.x.

regards,

 

[claudel]

Glad to see you fix the problem.

Me too. That turned out to be a very subtle configuration issue.
DHCP doesn't seem to be working properly between the VPC and
the OS X host. I ran into a similar problem genning up a VPC running
Knoppix and I had to hack the start scripts and hard-code network
configuration information. Seems to work, though.

I'm curious about how a guest os (in my case, xp with sp2 on virtual pc
7.0.1) may ping its host (a Mac OS 10.3.9) or vice versa, without
connecting to any networks?

I'm not sure it would be possible to ping without being connected to *some*
network. I'd think that the virtual switch would count as a network.

Is the XP or the OS X firewall blocking ICMP?

Try turning off both firewalls and see if you can ping then...

I use virtual switch as vpc's network setting. from the vpc I can see
it has a different ip address as the host's but cannot ping from/to
guest to/from host, even though I can ping the gateway.

I use a linksys 3-in-1 wireless router, with ip address in the range of
192.168.1.x.

regards,

Good Luck


Claude

 

[Alex]

Thanks Claude.

The problem persists even both sides' firewall turned off.

BTW, what I meant with "without ... any networks" is "external"
networks. That is, I'd like to have guest and host os talks to each
other even the host is offline from external networks.

Any hints?

Alex

 

[claudel]

Thanks Claude.

The problem persists even both sides' firewall turned off.

BTW, what I meant with "without ... any networks" is "external"
networks. That is, I'd like to have guest and host os talks to each
other even the host is offline from external networks.

Any hints?

Alex

How do you want to communicate between the VPC and the host besides
ICMP/Ping? Do your shared folders work OK?

I've never been able to have the VPC access services via "localhost"
on the OS X side. "localhost" translates to 127.0.0.1 on both sides
and I've never quite figured out what address to use on the VPC that
translates to the host localhost without going thru the external
interface, if that makes sense.


Claude

 

[Caldeus]

Hi

I am encountering the same problem as you with VPC 7.01 and Tiger.
Could you please tell me more detailed about how you fixed the problem?


What exactly do I have to change with resolv.conf and how? How can I
get to know the nameservers for my Mac?

Thank you very much for your help.

Peter

 

[claudel]

Hi

I am encountering the same problem as you with VPC 7.01 and Tiger.
Could you please tell me more detailed about how you fixed the problem?


What exactly do I have to change with resolv.conf and how? How can I
get to know the nameservers for my Mac?

Thank you very much for your help.

Peter

Hi

Open a Terminal window on the Mac.

Issue command "cat /etc/resolv.conf"
This will show you the nameservers that you are using.

On the Windows side, open the networking control panel
Start > Settings > Network and Dial Up Connections > Local Area Connections

Properties > select Internet Protocol TCP/IP > Properties

Check "Use the following DNS server addresses" and enter the IP addresses of
the nameservers you find in /etc/resolv.conf

Good Luck

Claude

 

[claudel]

Hi

Open a Terminal window on the Mac.

Issue command "cat /etc/resolv.conf"
This will show you the nameservers that you are using.

On the Windows side, open the networking control panel
Start > Settings > Network and Dial Up Connections > Local Area Connections
Check "Use the following DNS server addresses" and enter the IP addresses of
the nameservers you find in /etc/resolv.conf

Good Luck

Claude

If you move to a different location you will need to repeat this...

Claude

 

[Alex]

Claudel,

Thanks for the advice, but it doesn't work.

From the guest os (win xp) I can ping 192.168.1.1 which is the wireless

router/modem's address, I can also ping the guest itself (192.168.1.66)
but have "time out" when trying to ping the host (192.168.1.65).

I wonder whether there're other settings I have to do.

Alex

 

[claudel]

Claudel,

Thanks for the advice, but it doesn't work.

router/modem's address, I can also ping the guest itself (192.168.1.66)
but have "time out" when trying to ping the host (192.168.1.65).

I wonder whether there're other settings I have to do.

Alex

What are you wanting to do besides ping?

On mine the host address won't respond to pings
either, but I don't care. Does Internet Explorer
connect to the Internet from the VPC when the
host is connected

Claude

 

[Alex]

yes the guest's ie can connect to internet if the host is connected.

What i want the guest to do is to connect to a postgresql database
installed on the host.

regards,

 

[Paul Power]

You want to connect to a sql database that is installed on your Mac OS?
Thru Windows?

That won't work.............sorry

 

[claudel]

yes the guest's ie can connect to internet if the host is connected.

What i want the guest to do is to connect to a postgresql database
installed on the host.

Install the 7.0.2 upgrade. You will need to use the Virtual Switch.

I just made this work on my Powerbook. I don't have postgresql, but I have
an Apache/Mysql/PHP server running on the host.

What I did.

Enabled the Virtual Switch in the VPC, rebooted the VPC.

Changed to wired net connection, as the Virtual Switch is
still flaky using the wireless...

Set a static IP address in the guest on the same subnet
as the host using the same default gateway and different address.

I also had to create ipfw rules on the host to allow traffic
to/from the guest...

If I use the host address I can access the webserver without problems.

ping now responds as well

Good Luck

Claude

 

[claudel]

You want to connect to a sql database that is installed on your Mac OS?
Thru Windows?

That won't work.............sorry

I can now connect to a MySQL db running on the host from the guest
using phpMyAdmin /Explorer...

dunno about postgresql...

See my other posting regarding configuration

Claude

 

[Steve Jain]

Wireless networking will always be flakey. Virtual Switch needs to
force the wireless NIC into promiscuous mode, which is exactly what
the 802.11x protocols are designed to prevent. Promiscuous mode on a
wireless NIC is generally a bad thing in regards to security.

Install the 7.0.2 upgrade. You will need to use the Virtual Switch.

I just made this work on my Powerbook. I don't have postgresql, but I have
an Apache/Mysql/PHP server running on the host.

What I did.

Enabled the Virtual Switch in the VPC, rebooted the VPC.

Changed to wired net connection, as the Virtual Switch is
still flaky using the wireless...

Set a static IP address in the guest on the same subnet
as the host using the same default gateway and different address.

I also had to create ipfw rules on the host to allow traffic
to/from the guest...

If I use the host address I can access the webserver without problems.

ping now responds as well

Good Luck

Claude

--
Cheers,
Steve Jain, Virtual Machine MVP
Website: http://www.essjae.com
"This posting is provided "AS IS" with
no warranties, and confers no rights.
You assume all risk for your use.
I am not am employee of Microsoft."