Hi,

I'm an instructor and consultant in operating systems and since I'm travelling a lot it's very usefull to have most operating systems ready to run on my laptop.
VMware is a great help in this and I was wundering if I could use the networking capabilities from VMware in an OS on PearPC.

After playing with it for a few hours this weekend I got it working

The OS running on PearPC is DHCP client in this scenario

Open "VMware - Virtual Network Editor"
There are 3 major steps in VMware configuration - the last two steps are only if you need connectivity to other places than inside VMware itself.
(that is the Internet or corporate network)


1) Tab - "Host Virtual Network Mapping"
Use TAP-Win32 adapter as bridged (I use VMnet9)
At this point any other VMware operating system can be placed on the same subnet as the PearPC OS just by changing this VM's network configuration. This way you can make a Linux or Windows server be DHCP server as well as NAT router for the PearPC OS. However - to make it more simple - the next two steps use VMware's own DHCP and NAT capabilities.

2) Tab - "DHCP"
Setup a new DHCP scope for the VMnet bridged in step 1 (this net must be different than any other net inside your own business)
I use 192.168.71.0/24 - because it's different than any net on the places where I usually connect my laptop.

3) Tab - "NAT"
Setup Network Address Translation for the VMnet bridged in step 1 and - important;
either in "Edit" select "Allow any OUI". This allows any MAC address (OUI=Organizationally Unique Identifiers) to get NAT'ed - also the PearPC.
Or you could change the MAC address of your emulated NIC in the PearPC configuration file to be in the range that VMware is given from IEEE .
(00:50:56:xx:yy:zz (xx=00-3F)) Look http://standards.ieee.org/regauth/oui/oui.txt for details on this subject.

Restart the VMware services/daemons - and you are up running


This is so much smother than any other implementation I've seen around
VMware can give the complete IP configuration, and at the same time it is possible to use VMware's Network Address Translation (NAT).

Actually - the only thing thats missing is true bridging directly to the physical network - we have to use a router (in VMware) at least.
I'm using zebra running in another VM and connecting those two nets (in my case VMnet9 bridged to TAP-Win32 and VMnet0 bridged to my laptop's physical NIC)

As operating system I've testet this to work in Windows XP, Server 2003 and Fedora C2.
As to VMware versions it's testet working in VMware Workstation 4+ and in VMware GSX 3+
In prior releases it should be possible to get the same setup working
just have to find and edit the vmnetnat.conf and vmnetdhcp.conf configuration files.

The PearPC configuration file is in this setup not relevant -
if just you are using network support (Realtek or 3COM).

Either

pci_3c90x_installed = 1
pci_3c90x_mac = "00:50:56:00:00:01"

or

pci_rtl8139_installed = 1
pci_rtl8139_mac = "00:50:56:00:00:02"

The Mac addresses shown here are within VMware's MAC address scope.
When changing theese - the OS running on PearPC will need a network reconfiguration.



Have fun - I am :D
Michael Williams

i use VMware religiously myself and must say that this is excellent information! thanks :D!

I followed your instructions to a T with one of the latest versions of VMWare 4.

Do I need to actually be running a virtual machine in order for this to work, or do I need to be running at least the VMWare client?

Everything is setup identical to the directions - I have any OUI enabled, and I changed the MAC to the suggested one for the 3com adapter in my PearPC config file.

I'm running some version of OS X Jaguar; I know it's not the latest 10.2.x version.

Any help would be way appreciated. Thanks!

Hi,

Forgot to mention - if you are running VMware Workstation and you are not using VMware (not running the VMware application) you will need to setup VMware as a service. This is because the Workstation version does not start up any of it's services just because the application is installed on the computer.
For a guide on how to do this - follow this link:
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Windows/Art ... 42607.html

I hope this is usefull :-)

Sorry to be such a pain in the butt.
I meed a little bit more explanation with the following step:




Well I can set the VMnet bridged connection to DHCP but I can't change to
192.168.71.0/24

Also before starting all process this should my internet connection be shared to TAP32? and if so, should it have any IP on it?

and are there any specific IPs I need to set on virtual NIC on OS X?

Thanks

Ohh what can I say... I want networking on pearpc so deperately that I would give you remote access to my computer if you set it up for me!

Hi,

Sorry for not answering any questions for a while -
for the time beeing I'm on Greenland
and the internet lines from here are ..... narrow

Be back home in about a week.
And I would be happy to help setting up the network connectivity :-)


:-) Will