Configuring Bridging in VMware Server

This should be straight forward.
on Right click on the virtual machine, go to virtual settings -> go to hardware tab ->click on NIC1.
you should have this option to bridged.

Depending on your host ( depending on how many physical nics you have).
From the GSX console ( vmware server), go to host then virtual host settings, click on automatic bridging. Make sure there is a tick on automatically choose an available physical network adaptor to bridge to vmnet0.

This should cover you setup, no complex tweaking required, this will basically configure your machines together with the bridged settings. You may be required to restart your machines.

hope this helps. Unless you are after something else.

This might be interesting for you:

https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/23523137/How-Do-I-Specify-Which-Bridged-Vmnet-A-Particular-vmachine-uses.html

Shouldn't I be able to ping the VM's from my host server once this is set up?..I am not able to do this. I do an IPCONFIG from each VM to get the IP addresses and then try to ping from my host server and the requests time out..I must be doing something wrong.

Does DHCP and NAT need to be set up for this to work?...as I mentioned, I deleted a bunch of the default settings when I was messing around with settings...does someone have all the default setup information available?

Any firewall online in your VMs that block ICMP requests?

I have Windows 2003 installed in my VM's and do not have RRAs enabled in any of them so there is no firewall blocking

Can you ping the VMware Server from your Virtual machines?
Could you provide us with a few more details, e.g. what IP addresses, subnet masks and gateway information is set on the VMs? And what IP addresses is your NAT interface on the VMware host configured to use?

I cannot ping the VM Server host from any VM's

The NAT VMnet host is set to "Disable" and the service status says "stopped"
DHCP has no entries and shows the service as "Stopped"

Please post screenshots of all tabs in the "Manage Virtual Networks" application.

Click on Start -> Programs -> VMware -> VMware Server -> Manage Virtual Networks to start this app.

Here are my settings
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You have only bridged networking configured at the moment.
Make sure that your settings look like mine (regarding the vmnet2 interface) in the screenshots below:
nat1.PNG
nat2.PNG
nat3.PNG

There must be something else missing...I created the same settings as you identified in your screen captures and still cannot ping from VM to host or host to VN


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What IP addresses do your virtual machines currently have? They should have 192.168.109.something, your vmware server has 192.168.109.2 currently and make sure that the virtual machines are configured to use NAT networking (interface vmnet2).

They are listing the following (I have four VM's)
169.254.95.146
169.254.70.184
169.254.1.113
169.254.67.148

Since my host server is networked does my VMware server need to have any information about that? Should I be using "automatic bridging"? Perhaps I need to restart?...My VM's were not set to the correct  "Custom: Specific virtual network" so I changed them all to "VMnet2 (NAT)" and restarted the vm's...do I need to restart the host?

Thanks a million agriesser for sticking with me to get this working...I didn't have the DHCP enabled and once I did enable for VNnet2 it assigned IP addresses to all my VM's

One sidenote...I am able to ping the host server from the VM's but I cannot ping the VM's from the host server

Could I see the outputs of `route print` and `ipconfig /all` on the VMware Server host?

Route Print

IPv4 Route Table
===========================================================================
Interface List
0x1 ........................... MS TCP Loopback interface
0x10003 ...00 07 e9 17 32 8c ...... Intel(R) PRO/1000 MT Desktop Adapter
0x10004 ...00 06 5b 3b fd 36 ...... Intel 8255x-based PCI Ethernet Adapter (10/1
00)
===========================================================================
===========================================================================
Active Routes:
Network Destination        Netmask          Gateway       Interface  Metric
          0.0.0.0          0.0.0.0   129.93.248.254   129.93.248.130     20
        127.0.0.0        255.0.0.0        127.0.0.1        127.0.0.1      1
   129.93.248.128  255.255.255.128   129.93.248.130   129.93.248.130     20
   129.93.248.130  255.255.255.255        127.0.0.1        127.0.0.1     20
   129.93.255.255  255.255.255.255   129.93.248.130   129.93.248.130     20
        224.0.0.0        240.0.0.0   129.93.248.130   129.93.248.130     20
  255.255.255.255  255.255.255.255   129.93.248.130            10004      1
  255.255.255.255  255.255.255.255   129.93.248.130   129.93.248.130      1
Default Gateway:    129.93.248.254
===========================================================================
Persistent Routes:   None

IPCONFIG /ALL


E:\>ipconfig /all

Windows IP Configuration

   Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : bpdf-vir1
   Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
   IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes
   WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/1000 MT Desktop Adapter
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-07-E9-17-32-8C
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 129.93.248.130
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.128
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 129.93.248.254
   DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 129.93.1.166
   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 129.93.1.180
                                       129.93.5.241
   Primary WINS Server . . . . . . . : 129.93.1.180
   Secondary WINS Server . . . . . . : 129.93.5.241
   Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Thursday, July 24, 2008 8:47:23 AM
   Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Sunday, August 03, 2008 8:47:23 AM

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2:

   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel 8255x-based PCI Ethernet Adapter (1
0/100)
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-06-5B-3B-FD-36

E:\>

Ah, so the corresponding host adapter does not get created automatically as it seems.
In the "Manage virtual networks" tool, click on the tab "Host Virtual Adapters", click "Add" and choose vmnet2. It will create a new Local Area Connection on your VMware Server that gets automatically configured correctly with the preconfigured NAT network addresses. You should then have a route to 192.168.109.0 in your `route print` output as well as an interface called "VMware Network Adapter VMnet2" with the correct IP address. You should then be able to ping your VMs.

that did it...everything is working as I would expect!

I wish I could give you 500 more points...you've been VERY helpful...helped me learn about these settings as you worked me through them, I think I have a better understanding of network setup in VMware now

Thanks again agriesser!!!

You're welcome, glad that I could help you :)

Not sure if you're still monitoring this question, but I'm wondering if this is possible?

I can ping my vmware server host IP address from another computer on our network...but if I try to ping one of the new virtual servers I created, I get time outs...how do you make a network "aware" of the new virtual IP addresses on the vmware server host?

You cannot ping hosts behind a VMware NAT, see this ongoing question:

https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/23591663/How-to-access-VM-that-uses-NAT-from-machine-outside-of-host.html?anchorAnswerId=22088048#a22088048

You might want to monitor it.