Question Regarding VMware Home Lab Setup

pumbaa_g

Hi All,

I am currently working on a home lab and not able to connect my ESXi Host to vSphere.
The setup looks like this, I have my new Desktop running Win 7 x64 SP1 and VMWare Workstation 9. On the Workstation I am running one ESXi5 Host/AD-DNS & Win 2008 R2 with vCenter Server/Client. This machine is connected to the internet using a Buffalo ADSL2 with LAN.
The workstation has a host only network with
ESXi Host Static 192.168.10.10
Default Gateway 192.168.10.1
AD-DNS Static 192.168.10.1
Default Gateway 192.168.10.1
vCenter Static 192.168.10.2
Default Gateway 192.168.10.1
Till now everything works fine. I have a Intel NIC Card on PCI Slot and used that to connect my old desktop running ESXi5, updated the following configuration on the ESXi5
IP Static 192.168.10.11
Default Gateway 192.168.10.1
I have tried NAT/Bridged Connection & using the Intel NIC on the vNetwork but unable to make it work (tried adding second Network/as well as Bridged but the ADSL Router is providing IP Address)
Request some help on this, I am still new to VMWare so I will apologize in advance if I have missed anything obvious and would appreciate some help on understanding how to get this working.
Thanks in advance!

Essendon

I'd like to be able to help but dont quite understand what's not working. Your first sentence says you are having trouble connecting your ESXi host to vSphere, I believe you've typo'd and likely meant vCenter? If I understand correctly, you have 3 VM's inside Workstation - 1 x ESXi, 1 DC, 1 vCenter. Now are you having trouble connecting your vSphere client to vCenter or connecting your second physical machine to the VM's running inside Workstation on the first computer? Are you able to ping your VM's? Is there a firewall blocking the connection between the physical computers? Sometimes there's a firewall in the router that might cause issues.

If you explain a bit more, I'm sure someone can help you.

pumbaa_g

Sorry for not making it clear, I am facing issues with connecting my second desktop to the vCenter (on which I have ESXi5 IP Static 192.168.10.11
Default Gateway 192.168.10.1) Not able to ping as well. I tried adding the second physical NIC to the Bridged Network but that caused my AD-DNS & vCenter to loose connectivity as well. Not sure what I am doing wrong. Please let me know if any more details are required I will be happy to provide

elTorito

Some details are still hazy, I'm afraid. Are you able to make a quick sketch of how your lab is set up, including placement of the physical machines and how they're connected together (I'm assuming you're using a single router/access point as the intermediary device between your physical computers)? Does your entire lab, ie. virtual machines, hypervisors, physical machines and router all reside in a single subnet (192.168.10.0 /24)?

Once you bridge the ESXi host's network to the physical machine running the ESXi host, are you able to ping the ESXi host (the host's VMkernel address) from that physical machine? That should be the first criterium to meet before you can hope to have connectivity from the VMs running on one machine to VMs running on another.

Essendon

Try adding a second NIC to the vCenter VM, set it to bridged and then see if you can add the second host (the physical machine) to vCenter. You should be able to leave the other VM's on the host-only setting.

pumbaa_g

I have a Visio diagram on what I hope to achieve, will modify that and upload in a bit. Essendon I am not using my router for DHCP and once I setup the 2nd vNIC for Bridged my Host only Network starts having problems with IP Address being allocated. I will try once more and et you know

jibbajabba

Host-Only network won't work if another PC needs to connect to the VMs - When using NAT you'd have to forward each required port in the build-on VMware Workstation firewall / NAT settings.

You should use Bridge mode - so your virtual NIC is connected directly to the local network.

If you use Bridged Mode - do your VMs get an IP from your local network - the network all your devices run on, such as Laptop / Phone etc. ?

pumbaa_g

Sorry thats what is happening, 1 vNIC is Host only where I have the AD-DNS/vCenter Server/ESXi Host. I added a second vNIC and used Bridged Mode to connect my Intel Physical NIC to the Host Network but I am not able to ping my old Desktop running ESXi with IP Address 192.168.10.11 or the gateway.
I have also tried the Bridged Mode by mapping it to my on-board Network Card but in that case the Router starts assigning the IP Address and I am not able to login to vCenter Server.
Got caught up with work as well as festivities so will go back to checking this in a few days. In the meantime going through Scott Lowe's Book to see if I missed something
Thanks for your patience

pumbaa_g

Sorry for not updating anything for the last few days, have been in the ICM Training for vSphere 5 and by the time I come back home and finish reading up on whats covered in the class during the day its time to catch up on a few hours of sleep. I am sure I am developing serious dark circles under my eyes from continuous lack of sleep. On the positive side the training includes access to fully functional labs with all the bells and whistles 24 by 7 so I am making the best of it before my exam on 29th. More updates by next week