How Do I get 2 VM players to talk to each other

Joshsevo

Here's my situation. I have a computer that I have 2 VM's setup on to do some labs on Security. I am using VMplayer and my host is Windows 7 desktop. I need to be able to have the VM's communicate with each other so I can "attack" one of them and try some exploits on them.

Both VM's are REDHAT Linux OS.

I went into the settings and saw that I can have different types of connections: Bridge, NAT, Host only. I've been told I need to use Bridged to do this but due to my little knowledge of them I don't know.

I am a total newbie to VMPlayer so use basic terms for me.

Here's what I've done so far:
IPConfig on my host to see if the VM's are sharing their IP's....nothing shows
Tried going onto the first VM and did ifconfig to get the IP address...still nothing
Tried other CMD's to get the IP address to show.

Tried downloading programs like NMAP but can't figure out how to get the to load on the Linux box. On my host it's easy and already done.

Any help you can give will be appreciated.

ThePrimetimer

I'd try using Host only for the connections. I use it for my AD environment and haven't had any problems with the two computers able to talk to each other. But, then again, I'm brand new to using VMs for testing and use VM workstation 7. So maybe someone else here with a little bit more under their belts will pipe up and give a better explanation.

Good Luck!

Joshsevo

Ya already tried that, nothing happens.

lsud00d

Try

#/sbin/ifconfig

To get the IP's. I would think bridged mode would be best for open communications.

MentholMoose

Set the virtual NICs for the VMs to bridged and connect them to the same physical NIC that your desktop uses to connect to your LAN. If your desktop only has one NIC, then it is no problem, but many desktops have multiple NICs so be sure to choose the right NIC. Once they are both bridged, they are essentially on your LAN, so configure them like any other machine on your LAN. If your LAN has a DHCP server, then configure the VMs with DHCP and reboot them (or do "service network restart") and they should pick up an IP via DHCP.

Errors given by the DHCP client are logged to /var/log/messages so you can check that. During VM boot there should be messages when networking starts so if you don't see those, make sure networking is enabled by default (chkconfig network on).