Port forward to VMware NAT -> VM

[procrastine]

Yeah, it has spare ethernet ports.

I tried the bridging setup without disturbing the default VMware settings - I switched the NAT to a bridged connection, bridged to my NIC card. I left the auto-bridging alone, but I don't think it will work with my modem/router (ISP supplied).

when I start the CentOS VM with VMware using these settings, it takes a while to start, and in the diagnostic window I can see that a message like this:

Determining IP information for eth0... [FAILED]

I also notice that I no longer have any connection in CentOS.

You said that I should be bridging the VM to my router? I don't see the option to do that in the Virtual Network Editor, only my NIC card appears in the list.

I do notice the firewall on my Windows box is displaying a new IP with this setup: 192.168.116.1

the result of ifconfig -a with VMware using this setup:

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0C:29:F4:29:8D
inet6 addr: fe80::20c:29ff:fef4:298d/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:28 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:23 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:3368 (3.2 KiB) TX bytes:5475 (5.3 KiB)
Interrupt:67 Base address:0x2000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:3118 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:3118 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:4107624 (3.9 MiB) TX bytes:4107624 (3.9 MiB)

sit0 Link encap:IPv6-in-IPv4
NOARP MTU:1480 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

[procrastine]

could this be because the bridged VM connection is not set to use my modem/router as the default gateway?

I don't know how the CentOS VM is supposed to obtain an IP using the DHCP service in my modem/router with simple access to my NIC card. surely this new IP that is appearing is not on the same subnet of my modem/router, so I don't see how it is communicating with it.

if this is the problem, where exactly would I enter the modem/router's gateway IP? I can only seem to enter this info on VMnet1, which appears to be where the 192.168.116.0 subnet is residing, but I don't know if this is supposed to be different? or perhaps I just have it set up wrong in the VNE?