No Internet Connectivity

[Osteele]

Hello all. First off, let me start by saying that I am new to both the community and virtualization in general. Spent the weekend educating myself so-to-speak. Here is where I am at so far:

Installed ESXi 4.0 on to an HP xw8200 Quad Zeon / 2 SATA 500g drives (Install was flawless)

Use converter to deploy a SBS2003 client which had been created using Vmware Workstation 6.5.x (Completed successfully)

Use vSphere to power on VM. Log into SBS2003. I get a message that SBS2003 need to be activated. Attempt to do so, but appears that I have no Internet connectivity.

ESXi network parameters seem to be setup correctly. Static IP 192.168.1.xx / Gateway Linksys WRT54G 192.168.1.1 / DNS. Network test comes back OK on all.

Thank you in advance for your time and patience.

Peter

[AndreTheGiant]

Which network parameters do you have on your SBS2003?

ESXi network parameters are related ONLY for ESXi, not for VMs.

Andre

[Osteele]

Hello Andre. Thanks for the prompt reply. My dilemna is that I cannot get past the activation screen even if I wanted to verify / modify the SBS2003 network parameters. I do recall how it was setup at the clients' however. It was different in so far as the servers' IP address and gateway address. Would that make a difference?

Which network parameters do you have on your SBS2003?

ESXi network parameters are related ONLY for ESXi, not for VMs.

Andre

[AndreTheGiant]

You can see network parameters from vSphere Client.

It SBS is waiting for a DHCP it never will work.

Andre

[Osteele]

AndreTheGiant wrote:You can see network parameters from vSphere Client. It SBS is waiting for a DHCP it never will work. Andre {color:#0000ff}Thank you again Andre. Edit VM settings / network parameters does not seem to allow me to specify NIC ip address settings. SBS was not set up to listen to DHCP originally. Loaded an XP VM in vSphere and was able to edit network parameters from within XP and was able to surf the internet.{color}

[DSTAVERT]

I can't remember the entry but you can assign an IP from the VMX file.

[kjb007]

With ESXI, the server network connectivity is not all that you have to configure for a vm to talk on the network. You'll have to make sure that in your ESXi server networking, that you have a vm network portgroup that your vm will use to connect to the network. Was that setup? Is your vm going to use the same network subnet as your ESXi host, as well as the same NICs?

-KjB

VMware vExpert

Don't forget to leave points for helpful/correct posts.

[Osteele]

kjb007 wrote:With ESXI, the server network connectivity is not all that you have to configure for a vm to talk on the network. You'll have to make sure that in your ESXi server networking, that you have a vm network portgroup that your vm will use to connect to the network. Was that setup? Is your vm going to use the same network subnet as your ESXi host, as well as the same NICs?

Thank you for assisting me.

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In response to your question regarding "network portgroup" being setup, the answer would be NO. Not exactly sure how to proceed. Some more reading would be in order.

Same "network subnet", the answer would be YES

By the way, loaded a Win XP VM shortly before reading your response. Was able to edit network parameters to fall into appropriate IP range / subnet / gateway. Was able to surf the internet without a gllitch.

[Lightbulb]

Give what you have said I do not think you have an ESXi network problem, you have an SBS activation issue. the settings of the converted Workstation VM do not allow it to connect to the internet and since the hardware of the system has changed SBS thinks it needs activiation but you cannot gain enough access to reconfigure networking due to activation issue.

You could always try to activate over the phone and if your SBS is legit you should have no issue.

[DSTAVERT]

http://www.petri.co.il/bypass-windows-server-2008-activation.htm

There is also one for 2003

[Osteele]

Good read by the way. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem possible with SBS2003. Thanks so much for the link. Appreciate the help

http://www.petri.co.il/bypass-windows-server-2008-activation.htm

There is also one for 2003

[Osteele]

That's right. I can't gain access to the network config so long as I am unable to re-activate. Activating over the phone might be the only solution.

However, there is one thing that I would like to try before hand. If I remember correctly, the servers ip address may have been 192.168.0.2 and the router ip 192.168.0.1. Obviously, both these devices are located on my clients premises. Something that can easily be verified. I will try changing my router's ip to match that of my clients router. I will also the ESXi server IP as well.

I am really impressed at how members of this community are all so eager to help. Thank you.

Give what you have said I do not think you have an ESXi network problem, you have an SBS activation issue. the settings of the converted Workstation VM do not allow it to connect to the internet and since the hardware of the system has changed SBS thinks it needs activiation but you cannot gain enough access to reconfigure networking due to activation issue.

You could always try to activate over the phone and if your SBS is legit you should have no issue.

[DSTAVERT]

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