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roy_battyFlag for United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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Running window DHCP server in host-only mode on VMware workstation

Hi

I am trying to set up a lab environment using VMware workstation 10.

I have 2 VMs, a Windows 8 client and a Windows Server 2012 R2 server.

I have put them both into VMnet2 which is configured as a host only network.

I have unchecked the box that enables the built in VMware DHCP server.

The windows server 2012 VM has dhcp server set up and it is authorized.

My Windows 8 VM will not pick up an IP address from the server.

Any suggestions to what I am doing wrong?
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David Johnson, CD
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host only means that it will only communicate with the host and not other vm's nor the outside network.
Do you have a domain controller for this lab? Having an authorised DHCP server you will also need a DC with working DNS. Another issue I can see here is that on physical switches there is a DHCP help address which is the address of the DHCP server, this provides clients with a means to identify the DHCP server and obtain an address. I am not aware of a way to set this helper address on a virtual switch in vmware.
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ASKER

I think I have been misunderstanding exactly what "host only" means. I thought any VM added to the host only network would be able to communicate with each other. Is this not the case?

I have therefore put both VMs on a NAT network. I'm still cant get the client to get an IP address from the server.
After moving both VMs to a NAT network I was still having issues getting the clients to talk to one another. I noriced that there was an additonal TAP-Windows Network adaptor which was confusing things on both VMs.

So I deleted all the network adaptors on both VMs and rebooted them and let them install the adaptors again (this time just the one adaptor each - no TAP)

It is all working now. Client VM is getting IP from DHCP VM.

Many thanks.
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vivigatt
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Well its all working now and I also have the benefit of being able to access the internet from the VMs now too.

I only wanted to use host only to stop the Lab interfering with my home network. e.g didn't want wife's laptop to suddenly start getting ip addresses from the virtual dhcp server.

I now realize that this wouldn't happen anyway as the virtual nat network is "protected" by the nat itself. i.e no broadcast dhcp requests.

Now that the host-only function has been cleared up, I feel that the initial issue was caused by the dhcp server binding to the TAP adaptor.

You deserve some point for this but I think its too late now.

Thanks though.
You accepted a wrong solution, that does not explain/resolve your issue and that may confuse users in the future !
Once again : a host-only network is a private network in which ALL the guests can communicate together and with the host but not with the outside world.
As I mentioned. I think the issue was down to DNS server network bindings.

Thanks for the help guys.