I ran into an interesting problem with VMWare Server 2.0 this week on a laptop. When the network cable is not plugged in and you're not on a wireless network, you can't open a browser to connect to the console of currently running virtual machines. (I really miss the old Console app).
The workaround I use is to create a Loopback Adapter on the host machine:
2003 instructions:
http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-5647584.html
XP instructions:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/839013
Once created, assign a static IP like 172.16.180.1 or something similar. The loopback adapter is always on and always appears connected. Reboot and then use the loopback adapter's address to get into the VMWare admin web console. https://172.16.180.1:8333 or whatever address you chose to assign your loopback adapter. (Keep in mind you want to choose an address that isn't likely to conflict with other networks when you travel. Using the loopback adapter is perfectly safe and won't affect how your virtual machines operate. This workaround just pertains to how the web console is bound to IIS.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
5 comments:
127.0.0.1 is the standard loopback adapter. Should be able to use that without any special effort at all.
Yeah, but I found some applications display odd behavior when it sees 127.0.0.1 as the IP. I ran into another one a few months back that would work fine with any IP except 127.0.0.1 for which it just barfed. So just for prevention I avoid using the default loopback IP.
Very subtle detail... the loopback adapter needs to have a DNS server listed, even if it is 127.0.0.1. Other articles have explained that the MS TCP stack won't initialize w/o it, even if it is never used (as with hosts files). Duh.
Gnawgnu - tx for tip on console access
Greg Davis - tx for tip on loopback adapter needing a DNS entry
Thank you very much for posting this information.
It saved me a lot of time.
Post a Comment