No internet access in bridge mode

[Desktop_Product]

Hi,

i have installed VMware Fusion 7.1.0 on my Mac. In Fusion i installed as guest Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro with network adapter in Bridge mode and the Mac has internet access via WiFi. When i now want to access the internet in Win 8.1 via Internet Explorer i don't get a connection. The network adapter in Win 8.1 says 'No Internet Access'.

It works fine if i change the network adapter to NAT mode or the Mac internet access from WiFi to Ethernet cable.

Has anybody an idea what's wrong?

Many thanks in advance.

Best regards,

Martin

[AndiS67]

Hi.

To solve the problem you may have to tell us a bit more about your infrastructure.

I suppose you already installed vmware tools inside the windows 8 virtual machine.

Possible causes for this can be...

• No ip address in the win8 machine (i.e. the dhcp server hands out addresses only to known mac-addresses).
• Some firewall filters that allow access to the internet only for known ip-addresses.
• A mac address filtering on the wifi access point.

First i would start off by checking if the windows 8 vm gets an ip-address when set to dhcp (which is usually the default setting).

There are different ways to do this. My prefered solution is to start a command shell and run the command "ipconfig /all" without the quotes.

I currently got no windows 8 system at hand to verify the correct way.

You can search the internet for "windows 8 check ip" to find various instructions how to do this.

Feel free to choose the one that fits your personal need best. 😉

If the ip address is like 169.xxx.xxx.xxx then it is a self assigned one from the zero config ip range which usually means that the system could not get an ip-address via dhcp.

• Check if there is some kind of mac-address filter active on the wifi access point or the networks firewall system.
• Check if the dhcp server on the network is set to only hand out ip-addresses to known mac-addresses.

If the ip-address is set to one of the range of the network you are connecting to then you might have any kind of firewall rules active that prohibit internet access.

Usually on corporate networks these restrictions apply.

Hope that helps as a starting point.

May i ask a question? Did the windows 8 machine came up with a popup to ask for a network classification (corporate or public) after switching from NAT to bridged?

regards

Andi

[Desktop_Product]

Hi Andi,

thanks a lot for your reply.

Yes i have installed the VMware tools inside the Win 8.1 virtual machine.

Here my further infos, answers:

1. The Win 8.1 gets the ip address in Bridge mode from my ZyWALL router as i configured by 'IP/Mac binding'. I checked it via 'ipconfig /all' in Win 8.1.

2. For test i switched off the firewall in Win 8.1 virtual machine and also in my MacBook Pro - no success.

3. Yes i have a mac filtering on the WiFi access point (Apple Airport Extreme in Bridge mode). But it also doesn't work when i for test switch off the mac filtering.

4. No the Win 8.1 machine doesn't ask for a network classification (corporate or public) after switching from NAT to Bridge mode.

5. With my old Linksys access point all works fine.

In my opinion the Apple Airport Extreme access point is the problem. What do you mean and what is the possible workaround?

Best regards,

Martin

[AndiS67]

Hi Martin.

I suppose you already asked a similar question at the apple support communities on december 20th with no luck. 😉

Basically you identified the apple airport extreme as not working as expected because you tested with a different ap and it worked fine.

It is hard to say what is the cause for this situation (maybe a different interpetation of specifications and standards on both ends.)

Usually in such a case i would start tracing network packets at various locations to make sure it _is_ the ap causing this and to have a better technical understanding of the issue.

Trace packets...

• In the virtual machine with wireshark
• On the macbook using "sudo tcpdump -ni <wifi interface>"
• On the zywall by enable the build in packet tracing feature.
• On the airport extreme ap by enable the logging feature (use Airport Utility on the mac)

Then start by sending ping packets in the virtual machine to an easy to "see" ip address in the traces. i.e. "ping -t 8.8.8.8"

Now watch the traces for icmp packets and identify the location where packets do not get forwarded.

The point is that even when you can see that packets do not pass the ap i doubt that using the airport logging you will be able to see what is going on - or better what is not going on.

In a "customers site scenario" this would be enough evidence for me to tell the customer "change the access point and you are ok" - but this will not help in your case because you would like to continue using the airport extreme - don't you. 😉

Another point is that i do not know of any way to see the airport internals except from the the logging feature.

Best would be to run tcpdump on the airport itself but this is not possible afaik.

You may spend a lot of time tracing down the problem

• Using a different virtual machine based on linux or mac osx to see if it os dependend
• more intensive packet tracing
• Fiddle around with airport extreme firmware
• fiddle around with vmfusion

But in the end you cannot make it work - you can only say "yep - it is like this".

Sorry to say that.

regards

Andi

[jeffbreault]

I am having a very similar problem, if not the same.

If I connect the MAC wireless to my access point, and configure Fusion to bridge the connection, I can get an IP address (DHCP) from the wireless network but I cannot ping the default gateway, access internet, etc. (within the VM)

If I hardwire a connection to the same wireless router, bridge that specific connection in Fusion, it works.

     Note: When I first created this connection I was prompted for my mac password to create a bridged network for the new network (never bridged this Ethernet connection before, always wireless)

My thinking is that something with the bridged interface translation is broken. Seems I can get an IP, but cannot pass traffic on wireless within the VM (Full access on the mac side using same interface/AP)

NAT works

Autodetect bridge works, but I cannot use this configuration. (I have a hardwire connection to one network, and wireless to the second. I need the VM on the second network. )

Odd thing was, this was working for quite some time, then it stopped possibly around the time MAC OS patches were pushed out...

I uninstalled/reinstalled fusion, removed AV, etc.

Still stuck...

[Desktop_Product]

Hi Andi,

thanks a lot for your detailed instructions. I think there is a problem in the Apple Airport Extreme because with another WiFi access point it works when the VM (Windows 8.1) is in Bridge mode. Now i decided therefore and also that i'm not a network crack to leave it as it is. Yes i asked the question at the apple support communities - but no reaction 😞

Best regards,

Martin

[Desktop_Product]

Hi Jeff,

yes i think you have the same problem - see my reply i gave to Andi.

Best regards,

Martin

[TheITMonkey]

What type of wireless access point do you have?  I recently had this issue at our office and at a client's home.  I found the issue was on the wireless side.

At the office, we have a Cisco wireless network with 5508 controllers.  To resolve the issue, I had to enable Passive Client in the WLAN settings.

At the client's home, an Apple Airport is in use.  Enabling IGMP Snooping resolved it there.

Hopefully this helps!

[Desktop_Product]

Hi,

thanks for your post. I use an Apple Airport Extreme as an access point and yes the problem is caused by the WLAN. You described enabling IGMP Snooping in the Airport Extreme - how can i do this?

Regards,

Martin