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crazywolf2010Flag for United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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VMware - Assign same IP Address to guest Machines using MAC

Hi,
I have number of VMware machines under vmware workstation.

1. I personally don't want to use Static ip due to some networking issues I have.  But I need to assign them same dynamic IP address every single time. How do I do it?

2. Is there a DNS  service built within VMware workstation I can use?

Thanks
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Avatar of Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)
Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)
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Hi,

1. Assign a very long Max Lease time.
>> Where do I find settings for this?

2. Do you mean DHCP or DNS?
>> I possibly need both.
Mainly DHCP so there is always same IP assigned to a machine,.
DNS will help me to address machine with their names than IPs.

Thanks
Are you talking about the lease time here?

User generated image
That's correct, set the default and max lease times, to a very long value, this will ensure your VMs, keep the same IP Address for a very long time. e.g. = static

VMware Workstation does not include DNS.

a simple hosts file copied around your VMs, is the most basic DNS, as IP Addresses will remain static, otherwise you would have to rely on DNS provided by Windows OS or Linux OS.
Hi,
The max lease is for 63 days. This is OK for time being but I am sure my VM machines will be there for years/months. Is there no other way?

Thanks
You can make a DHCP VM. Disable NAT and DHCP service from VMware.

In your DHCP VM, you can set an IP reservation for the MAC. Let me know if you want to do this with a windows DHCP. Windows DHCP will need a active directory environment (It needs to be authorized in the AD)
How DHCP works, is it will contact the DHCP server, an IP addresses will be leased for 63 days, and then after 30 days, it will ask for the lease again.

So a 63 day lease is really infinity!

It's unlikely it's going to change, if the VM is on all the time, and you do not use all the IP Leases!

How many VMs do you have hundreds?
or you could use

http://www.dhcpserver.de/dhcpsrv.htm

or

http://sourceforge.net/projects/dhcpserver/

or

http://tftpd32.jounin.net/

also inlcudes DNS!

for FREE, with no Active Directory, or Windows Server licensing cost!

Depends on how you want to do DHCP, you could also do it with your Wireless Router, for Internet!

But your question asked how to do it with VMware Workstation!