Issues with VMware and dialup?

[Derek Moore]

> I am guessing that if I was to use Linux to dial up, I would have to 
> set Linux up to be a proxy for the virutal NT box? Or, would I be able 
> to set up the virtual NT box to have it's own dialup and use the 
> modem? Since I do not have a modem on this machine here, I can't test 
> it to see if a modem would even work with the virtual machine. 

Okie... There's a couple of ways you could go about this... There are two
types of networking that VMware can do. Host-to-host or bridged. With
host-to-host the host operating system has both a external IP [ie: an
internet IP address] and a local IP [ie: a non-routable IP address
(usually 192.168.0.1, or something similar)] and the virtual machine has a
local IP (usually 192.168.0.2, or something similar). The host operating
system and the virtual machine communicate with each other via the local,
non-routable IP address. If you wanna get out over the host operating
system's external IP address then you'll need to setup IP masquerading.

The second form of networking with VMware is called bridged networking. In
which the virtual machine has it's own external IP address and it acts and
is setup as though any normal system would with it's own unique Internet
IP address. If you're on a LAN all you need to do is assign your virtual
machine an unused IP address and you're off and running.

But if you're using a modem you have two options... They are:

1)  You can setup the Linux box to dial-up and use host-to-host networking
with IP masquerading allowing your virtual machine to get out over the
host operating system's dial-up. As for setting up the host-to-host
networking and IP masquerading, that is all described in pretty good
detail in the VMware documentation. Or you can consult the IP-Masq HOWTO.

2)  You can give the virtual machine access to your comm ports. Go into
Setting -> Configuration Editor. Pull down Serial Ports; there you'll have
COM1, COM2, COM3, and COM4. Go ahead and let's choose COM1. Set the File
Type to Device and set the Path to the device that controls your modem on
that machine [usually /dev/modem (or something like /dev/cau0 (or even
/dev/ttyS0, depending on your kernel))]. Then in the virtual machine setup
the modem as normal and tell it to use COM1 to access the modem. And...
well... that's it. Just setup a Dial-Up Networking connection and dial it.
It's that easy.

Hope that helps, yo. Me done now.

/*  Begin Signature File  */
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
@sig = ("Derek Paul Moore",
        "derekm at madcowi.com",
        "I don't do Microsoft.",
        "I started with nothing & I still have most of it left.");
print ("$sig[0]n$sig[1]n$sig[2]n$sig[3]n");
/*   End Signature File   */