Help with networking on virtual machines on a Mac

[dwnelson]

Short version: My hard-wired Windows virtual machines running on Macs aren't talking to each other, neither with Open Dental nor with any other program

Embellished version: I am setting up a new office and I have Mac hardware, hard-wired via Cat6 ethernet cables through an ethernet switch (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002DK ... 00_details). All the correct lights on the switch are green, meaning that it's probably not a hardware problem. The computers can't talk to each other... the third number in the IP addresses are different! I have talked with Open Dental support and they go their most experienced networking person and they can't figure it out - this problem is not limited to Open Dental usage, but is inclusive of any kind of shared folder or any sort of networked communication. I talked with a local, independent IT guy here and it's $300 to get him to come out and fix this. He didn't say what needed to be done, but he did say it couldn't be done remotely. I can't afford that yet, as I am opening a new office. I'd like to try to do this on my own.

Here's my network:
Server: mid-2011 Mac Mini, running the latest build of Lion, VMware Fusion 4, and Windows 7 Professional 64 bit
Reception (front desk): 2007 20" iMac running the latest build of Lion, VMware Fusion 4, and Windows XP Pro
Operatory1: 2008 13" black Macbook running the latest build of Lion, VMware Fusion 4, and Windows XP Pro
As far as I know, I have dynamic IP addresses.

In each virtual machine, I opened cmd, typed in ipconfig /all and got the following screenshots (uploaded to Picasa because I don't know how to attach images to this post):
https://picasaweb.google.com/1106995831 ... ngProblems

Can anyone give me some direction here?

Thanks.
Dan

[wjstarck]

Based on those photos, it looks like you have 2 DHCP servers running. This will cause problems. One of the machines isn't even on the same subnet as the others, because it's IP is assigned by the second DHCP server. Also, unless you posted the same photo twice, two machines have been assigned the exact same IP by DHCP, which will knock both of them out of commission for networking.

Can you ping the machines on the same subnet from each other? Can you ping the router on the same subnet from either of those? Can you ping out to the internet (try ping 4.2.2.1)?

[stjames70]

Can your Macs see each other in Finder?

If yes, then it is something in your VMWare Fusion 4 settings which may not be quite correct. On VMWare fusion settings window for your machines, find the Network Adapter settings and choose the second option which is to directly connect to the physical network (bridged) and choose the auto detect function.

Also, I looked into the switch you bought. That is only a switch, and not a router, so it is not going to assign you an IP address. For that you will need a router somewhere, whether you provide the router or the router is provided to you by your broadband company.

Our computers (all eleven of them) are networked using an Airport Extreme Base Station. Our Cisco router is set up as a pass through router so that the AEBS serves as the router and DNS server. That way, we can use Back to My Mac flawlessly.

All I can say, is that once you get your networked figured out you will have a very smooth experience with your current set up. I had one of my patients do that for me in exchange for some dental services. He did spend quite a few hours, and I suggest you do the same instead of wading in the dark. Or find a friend or someone with more network experience.

It is not very difficult, but knowing which buttons to push and which levers to pull in a network is not intuitive, and will require some time and some pain during initial set up. But do yourself a favor and get it done right or you will have a very difficult time. In short, I don't think your network is properly set up at this point with what you have just said, and you will need a router. If your switch is plugged into your router, then you will need to access your router. Most of the time, those things are set up so that you just plug in your server and your workstation and they see each other.

[dwnelson]

Thanks for your input, both of you. I'll reply to both at the same time.

>Based on those photos, it looks like you have 2 DHCP servers running. This will cause problems. One of the machines isn't even on the same subnet as the others, because it's IP is assigned by the second DHCP server.

I'm not really sure what to do. I followed some online instructions to disable DHCP in Fusion 4 (http://communities.vmware.com/message/1827626?tstart=0) but after running ipconfig, I got the same results, including the one that says DHCP is still enabled.

>Also, unless you posted the same photo twice, two machines have been assigned the exact same IP by DHCP, which will knock both of them out of commission for networking.

I went back and looked at the photos and there are three distinct IP addresses. Did you look at the same photo twice?

>Can you ping the machines on the same subnet from each other? Can you ping the router on the same subnet from either of those? Can you ping out to the internet (try ping 4.2.2.1)?

I'm a bit of a networking newbie, sorry. I know how to ping, but I don't know the address to type in, and I don't know what a subnet is. Sorry. Should I type in the IP address when pinging?

>Can your Macs see each other in Finder?

Yes, the Macs can see each other in the Finder. Like I said, I think this is a configuration problem in Fusion or Windows rather than a hardware problem. I can even share an internet connection through the switch (so I can plug my separate internet router into the hard-wired Ethernet switch, and computers connected to the switch can access the internet).

>If yes, then it is something in your VMWare Fusion 4 settings which may not be quite correct. On VMWare fusion settings window for your machines, find the Network Adapter settings and choose the second option which is to directly connect to the physical network (bridged) and choose the auto detect function.

I tried this, but again, after running ipconfig, I got the same outcome as in the screen shots.

>Also, I looked into the switch you bought. That is only a switch, and not a router, so it is not going to assign you an IP address. For that you will need a router somewhere, whether you provide the router or the router is provided to you by your broadband company.

I wanted my Open Dental and XDR network to be hard-wired and isolated from the internet, so I got the switch. I have an internet connection shared over WiFi when I want to enable the internet on the client computers. Does it matter that the switch is not a router, and is incapable of assigning an IP address? I was looking into setting up static IP addresses via Windows. What about that idea?

>Our computers (all eleven of them) are networked using an Airport Extreme Base Station. Our Cisco router is set up as a pass through router so that the AEBS serves as the router and DNS server. That way, we can use Back to My Mac flawlessly.

I'm not sure what all of this means, but using Back to My Mac sounds awesome! My plan was to do Back to My Mac to remotely control my server, from which I can control the Win 7 Pro virtual machine.

>All I can say, is that once you get your networked figured out you will have a very smooth experience with your current set up. I had one of my patients do that for me in exchange for some dental services. He did spend quite a few hours, and I suggest you do the same instead of wading in the dark. Or find a friend or someone with more network experience.

Right now that will cost $. My one friend who is capable of this lives an hour away and has a newborn... not gonna happen.

>It is not very difficult, but knowing which buttons to push and which levers to pull in a network is not intuitive, and will require some time and some pain during initial set up. But do yourself a favor and get it done right or you will have a very difficult time. In short, I don't think your network is properly set up at this point with what you have just said, and you will need a router. If your switch is plugged into your router, then you will need to access your router. Most of the time, those things are set up so that you just plug in your server and your workstation and they see each other.

Thanks. Maybe we can work something out with the above, but if not I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and pay someone.

[dwnelson]

I got it fixed!

I hired a local IT guy and for $65 and half an hour of my time, it's up and working. For those interested in knowing what happened, here goes:

I manually set everything to a fixed/static IP address within the virtual machines. I had to change some settings in VMware Fusion 4 (Virtual Machine --> Network Adapter --> Bridged (ethernet). I was told that a static IP address is a problem if I move my computer outside my LAN, but I don't have any plans for that, so this works.

For an unknown reason, WMware Fusion 4 was only allowing either a shared ethernet connection, or a shared WiFi connection, NOT both. That's actually fine because I specifically set up my network to have my LAN hard-wired and isolated from the internet for security reasons, with each client computer connecting to the internet via WiFi. Now, WiFi only works on the Mac side. Don't ask me why WMware Fusion 4 wouldn't share the WiFi, but whatever, it works.

[stjames70]

Ain't that a good feeling? You should have a smooth experience from this point forward. Back to My Mac should in theory work with a lot of routers, but I just bought the Airport Extreme Router so that I could reduce the number of steps necessary to set it up. With Back to My Mac setup, I can 'see' all my macs which share the same iCloud user name. It is great that I can fully control and diagnose my Mac from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. There are of course Windows counterparts, but as usual, the Apple iteration of remote access is pretty slick and easy to use. I wish you luck and hope you have a great experience with your current setup. Remember to make a clean copy of your 'server' VM and a clean copy of your 'workstation' VM in a safe and separate location. Also make sure you back up critical files such as the open dental data folders, Quicken and Excel files you may use in your office for accounting or other purposes. One of the great features in iCloud is a little folder called Mobile Documents hidden somewhere in your Library folder which syncs everything you copy into it. So you could use an application like Data Back Up to Back Up your critical data files to it on a daily basis and then iCloud would sync those documents in all your Macs which share the same user name.