VMWare Server Windows 2008 NAT Problem
- by David
At my new job our workstations run Windows Server 2008. However, for the specific task for which I've been hired, I need to set up a couple Linux VMs. So I grabbed the free VMWare Server and created an Ubuntu image and a Slackware image. (The former to more closely mimic the production server, the latter because I'm more familiar with it.) For desktop security purposes I need to use NAT for the network access (I would have preferred bridged, but I'm told that would go against some policy here and my whole workstation would be sandboxed from the switch).
However, I can't seem to get it working right. I can ping out from the VMs to LAN addresses as well as internet addresses. I can resolve DNS names. However, attempts to use a web browser or perform any kind of higher-level interaction like that just time out.
Googling around yesterday led me to various workarounds that were similar, but didn't solve my specific situation. (For example, Norton firewall blocking the connection on the host, or even the Windows firewall.) I also saw some forum posts where people said it's a known issue with VMWare and Windows Server 2008 (and Windows 7). So far I haven't been able to find a suggestion that gets me past this roadblock.
I'm really not very familiar with managing a Windows Server 2008 box, so it's possible there's just some security setting somewhere that I need to modify. Does anybody have any suggestions on where I should look?
UPDATE: I'm now looking at the "Network and Sharing Center" on the host workstation and it shows "VMWare Network Adapter VMnet8" (which is what I'm using) as an "Unidentified network" with "No Internet access." Looks like I can't modify ICS under the group policy. Any suggestions on how to allow this connection to have internet access?
