[PLUG] Multi-OS Admin Question

[Steve Bonds]

On 4/13/05, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Apr 2005, Rich Burroughs wrote:

> 
> > Can you ping the box that the share is on?

>    Er, no. They're the same physical box. I don't know if there's a 'ping' in
> win98. I used to be able to print from a win98 application and move files
> back and forth between the two systems.

VMware by default uses an ethernet type of "bridged" which gets its
own IP address via whatever means is configured into the Win98 guest--
usually by DHCP.  If you use a VMware interface type of NAT, then the
host OS will be your default gateway within Win98.

So even though they're the same physical box, the ping test is still a
valid diagnostic.
 
> > Is there a firewall or anything that's doing packet filtering between the
> > two boxes?
> 
>    Nope. That's another physical host.

Be careful making this assumption-- even though they are the same
physical host there is no guarantee that packets from the Win98 guest
OS make it to the linux host OS.

The local Linux packet filter is a very common source of problems with
VMware guest OS connections.  Again, the default is "bridged" so the
Win98 host will be trying to connect to SALMO via your normal ethernet
and will look like an external connection to Linux.

If you have a VMware virtual interface set up for "host only"
networking, then it will be communicating over a virtual interface. 
This also needs to be allowed through the local packet filter, which I
accomplish by allowing all traffic from the host OS interface "vmnet1"
through.

To diagnose this, enable logging on your packet filter.  If you see a
bunch of dropped packets from the Win98 guest OS IP, this is your
problem.

  -- Steve