Curse these smartin strings! These fucken ruptures!

[reddragdiva]

The good news: EAC works fine under VMware and connecting via Ethernet and bridging the VMware Windows to the Ethernet port gives Windows net access. The bad news: VMware virtualises the CD-ROM interface so EAC can't work its evil properly and VMware takes over the network connection so I can't use the host box on the network at the same time. Which misses the point, really. There are many ways around the second problem and we'll see what ways there are around the first. Suggestions are most welcome from those who have beaten on VMware.

It's been a quiet domestic weekend. We've bought crap on eBay. I am about to look for work. arkady has prepared a dollie for sale — go look and, preferably, buy.

Update: The network problem appears to have been that vmnet8 was set to use the same private network as the house router. Well done. The CD problem appears more troublesome — I need the ide-scsi module or an actual SCSI CD-ROM drive to perform digital audio extraction.

Another 256MB of memory (all this laptop will take) might come in handy too:

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
31011 root      18   0 1345m 486m  444 D  0.7 64.2   0:25.80 vmnet-dhcpd
 9308 fun        5 -10  300m 2756 2088 S  2.0  0.4   0:49.70 vmware-vmx

Comments

[rbarclay.livejournal.com]

What!? Which incarnation of VMware are you using? At least the various "wankstation"-line versions I've encountered (ranging from 3.x to 5.x) never made any trouble at all wrt. 'net-access when in bridge-mode.

[reddragdiva]

VMware Player. Dunno what it thinks it's up to.

[reddragdiva]

In fact, it's better than that: if the VMware services are running at all, they steal the interface.

The problem appears to have been that vmnet8 was set to use the same private network as the house router. WTF. It's behaving now.

[poggs.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you're using NAT mode and not bridging mode. The latter is much nicer from a networking perspective. USE IT.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I've always used NAT - why is bridging better?

[poggs.livejournal.com]

Bridging makes VMware appear to be 'just another machine on your LAN'. If you have the address space available, I'd always go for bridging as it allows you more flexibility, and none of the downsides of NAT (e.g. needing application-later gateways for non-NAT friendly traffic).

[ajohnymous.livejournal.com]

...vmnet8 was set to use the same private network as the house router.

As someone mentioned, you should be using vmnet0, bridging -- which will make your machine work as if directly on your home network.

NAT is more appropriate for an environment with a single physical host box (no local LAN) with a single NIC going out to the Internet (with only a single public IP address available) that you want to share with the virtual machine.

Bridging, unlike NAT, will allow SAMBA connectivity for your virtual client, as well as allow your virtual client to act as a server without having to manually redirect various incoming ports on the physical host to virtual client.

I need the ide-scsi module or an actual SCSI CD-ROM drive to perform digital audio extraction.

I've never used VMWare on a Linux host -- so I can't advise on what needs to be done to make raw, rather than legacy emulation, work on the CDROM. However, I have been able to set up raw mode on Windows host VMWare environments and DVD burning, digital audio extraction, DMA access, etc. have all worked fine in the virtual machine once raw mode is working. However, I haven't tried time dependent tasks, like DVD burning in low memory environments.

Another 256MB of memory (all this laptop will take) might come in handy too:
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
31011 root 18 0 1345m 486m 444 D 0.7 64.2 0:25.80 vmnet-dhcpd
9308 fun 5 -10 300m 2756 2088 S 2.0 0.4 0:49.70 vmware-vmx

256MB? You're a braver man than I. I typically run VMWare with >1GB of memory -- allowing for about 512MB for the host plus 512MB for each virtual client, or at least 256MB for a stripped down workstation virtual client.

That said, vmnet-dhcpd, the bigger hog above, is an optional component. Again, I'm not familiar with VMPlayer, but in workstation and server, you can disable the DHCP (and NAT) service in Edit|"Virtual Network Setting". Eliminating these running services might reduce your memory demand -- and if you run your virtual clients in bridging mode (using either static IP assignments, or an already existing DHCPd on the network, and/or an already existing NAT gateway on the network) you should never miss the VMWare DHCP and NAT.

Personally, I typically run VMWare on boxes with multiple NICS. I hard code vmnet0 to bridge to the LAN, vmnet1 to bridge to the WAN, and vmnet8 to the VMWare NAT. VBoxes that only need internal access get vmnet0. VBoxes that need internal access with outgoing internet access get either vmnet0 (and a default route to the LAN gateway to the Internet) or vmnet0 and vmnet8. VBoxes that need internal access and a non-private, non-NAT IP address get vmnet0 and vmnet1. VBoxes with multiple NICs, btw, can operate as routers if their OS allows -- as sometimes a virtual host makes a nice firewall solution, since a virtual machine can be protected and/or easily restored (with persistent disks and snapshots, etc.) from corruption.

[(Anonymous)]

The comment about not being able to samba to the VM in nat mode is false. You can connect directly to the appropriate vmnet interface INSIDE of the nated network.