Home VMWare lab

tfernandes

Hi All,

Need your assistance.

I have a laptop with 2 GB RAM & a desktop with 4 GB RAM.

I need to setup a home lab for study purpose.

is there way that i can install my DC onto my laptop which will run while all other's VM's (I.e. DFS, Exchange, SQL) can run on another desktop PC connected in the network.

My current Setup
ADSL - 1 MBPS
Aztec Router

I only want internet access for my laptop & not the desktop to be configured for VM's.

Any idea how to accomplish this.

I'll install vmware on laptop + desktop
install AD + DNS + DHCP on Laptop
install DFS, Exchange 2007 on Desktop

Now how to interconnect the laptop & desktop keeping in mind (No internet connection required for Desktop)

someone having a similar config please assist.

can't afford to increase RAM till 8 GB of the desktop.

Regards,
Thaddeus

elTorito

In theory, this shouldn't be very hard to accomplish.

You might have to disable DHCP on your router, and configure static IPs on both laptop and desktop. On the desktop, leave out the gateway address, so that it cannot find a route to another network. This covers your wish of not allowing Internet access on the desktop.

On both physical machines, create VMs and have their network adapters bridge to the physical network. Configure a static IP for the domain controller, point the DNS server's IP to itself. For DHCP, create a scope that encompasses the subnet your laptop and desktop are on. Typically, this will be 192.168.1.x /24.

With a working DHCP server, the VMs on the desktop should now be able to broadcast for their IP address and DNS server.

From here, it should be smooth sailing.

Lamini

make sure your machines are all 64bit capable.

Didnt see specs on your machines...

Hope youve read up on combine role requirements for S2k8/E2kX