Lab network setup question

[HeverHever]

Hi guys,

I'm trying to setup my network but I'm having some troubles. here's the scenario:

I have a machine running ESXi 5. This machine has one NIC and has the ip of 192.168.1.140. It is connected to an 8 port simple switch which connetcs to a router in order to get internet access.

(There are also other clients connected to the this router. all clients are or the 192.168.1.0 network).

I am using vSphere 5 which is installed on one of the clients.

I want to setup a lab environment which will consist of a one DC (which will provide DHCP and DNS services), an Exchange server and one or two desktop clients.

Currently I have the Windows Server 2012 installed as a VM. Obviously It got an address in the 192.168.1.0 subnet.

Problem is, I want the lab environment to work under a seperate subnet (say, 10.10.10.X) so that the DHCP and DNS services won't interfear with the clients on the 192.168.1.X network, BUT I also want to have internet access in the lab environment.

How do I go about configuring the network settings in vSphere for this?

I tried using IPCop but I still don't get internet access.

Do I need to use Vlan?

I hope everything was clear... :smileyhappy:

Thank you,

Jonathan

[LennieDH]

Hello,

I would configure one vSwitch using your only pNIC (vmnic). One VM port for VM networking and a VMKernel port for management traffic (vmotion having only one server is not a concern in your environment).

For VMs I would assign IPs in 10.10.10.X network except one VM which will have 2 IP one in both network classes and this will be the gateway for all other VMs.

This VM (I would go with Linux) will have 2 vNICs one in 10.10.10.X for internal lab network and another in 192.168.1.X network which allows this VM to have your LAN/internet access. This machine should route all packets from 10.10.10.X interface to 192.168.1.X interface.

If you google something similar to "How to configure a Linux gateway" you should find plenty of tutorials explaining this precedure.

...this is how I would do that, maybe someone else could give you a more useful advice!!

Hope this helps,

Regards,

Paolo.

[HeverHever]

Hi Paolo,

This is exactly what I was trying to do using IPCop (which is some kind of open source linux router/FW).

Everything is apparently configured correctly.

I can ping from the IPCop VM to the "WAN" (to the 192.168.1.X network and also outide to the internet).

I can ping from the IPCop VM to the "LAN" (to the 10.10.10.X network).

I can ping from the 2012 VM to the IPCop Lan leg (which is 10.10.10.254).

I can ping from the 2012 VM to the IPCop WAN leg (which is 192.168.1.10).

BUT

I CAN'T ping from the 2012 VM to the internet.

Here is the routing table of the IPCop VM:

Destination          Gateway          Genmask           Flag     Metric     Ref     Use      Interface

192.168.1.0          0.0.0.0            255.255.225.0     U          0            0         0        eth1

10.10.10.0           0.0.0.0             255.255.255.0     U          0            0         0        eth0

0.0.0.0                192.168.1.1      0.0.0.0                UG       0            0         0        eth1

*eth0 = LAN

*eth1 = WAN

everything seems to be correct so I don't understand where is the problem...

[LennieDH]

Hello,

I would investigate about iptables.

Have you tried to set up forwarding and masquerading on IPCop?

This guide maybe could give some useful hints:

http://linuxpoison.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-configure-linux-as-internet.html

Hope this could help,

Regards,

Paolo.

[HeverHever]

Thanks for link, but unfortunately I have no knowledge of linux what so ever :smileysad: , so I don't want to start messing with that right now...

This is why i'm looking for some out-of-the-box solution, like that IPCop thingy :smileyhappy:

Did you check the routing table I posted? isn't it configured correctly?

The IPCop only has port forwarding options and since i'm only trying to PING I don't think its related.

I belive it's just some stupid checkbox or configuration option I missed somewhere...

Anyway, here's a screenshot of my vSphere network setup. Do you see anything wrong?

[LennieDH]

Hello,

yes routing table seems correct to me.

I don't know how IPcop forward packets or if it has iptables or how they are configured, so I would install a standard linux distro and follow the forementioned tutorial.

On ESXi configuration there's no need to have 2 different VM Network

Regards,

Paolo.

[HeverHever]

Well, I'll try to look at that link you gave me again, or maybe find something similar to IPCop.

Thanks anyway :smileyhappy: