How to connect 2 virtual hosts running on the same machine?

Question

I have 2 virtual hosts running on my Windows XP laptop. One is Ubuntu running inside vmware player. The other is MS virtual PC (so I can test with IE6 ). The Ubuntu virtual host is running my web application with apache. I can point my browser on my laptop at the Ubuntu IP and view my web app. I read this post https://stackoverflow.com/questions/197792/how-to-connect-to-host-machine-from-within-virtual-pc-image and was able to get my Virtual PC to ping my physical machine using the loopback adapter. But I'm stuck on getting my Virtual PC to see my web application running in the Ubuntu vmware player host. I appreciate any suggestions.

Solution 1

I think there are two ways to do this:

1. Make sure both VM instances use NAT as the networking connection and make sure doesn't block
2. Open the VPC image in VMWare player and set both to use HOST only - the VMs will see each other and the HOST but not see outside of your machine.

I would choose option 2 only because when testing I prefer to have my VMs and websites isolated from the rest of the world. If you choose NAT then the VMs can access outside your HOST (machine running the VMs) if your HOST has internet/network access.

Solution 2

Just had this issue, here's how I fixed it in Win7 (because I am doing this at the office, so I just couldn't easily set it to NAT).

1. Set up "Microsoft Loopback Adapter"

   • Win7: How to install Microsoft Loopback Adapter

   • WinXP: How to install the Microsoft Loopback adapter in Windows XP

2. In VMware, using the Network Editor, set VMNet0 to bridged and the hardware to the loopback adapter

3. In VPC, just set to loopback adapter

4. Set the IP of:

   • the loopback adapter (maybe not required)
   • the VMware guest
   • the VPC guest

Comments

[kyrisu]

How the interfaces are configured on virtual machines (they are bridged or behind nat, using physical or virtual interfaces)? Do all machines have ip from the same subnet?

[Gabrielle]

thanks for the response. I was able to get it working by changing the settings on my vmware player to use bridged networking and sticking with NAT on my virtual pc.

[Thalys]

if its the right answer, you might want to select it as such - that way, if someone else has the same issue, they'll know at a glance that its the right answer ;)