VMware port forwarding

Post date: Sep 15, 2015 5:53:2 PM

This is a brief reminder of how to do port forwarding in VMware

- Use VMware NAT port forwarding. Since VMware player 5.0 hides away Virtual Network Editor, it must be accessed using the following command line

    + <VMware>\VMware Player> rundll32.exe vmnetui.dll VMNetUI_ShowStandalone

    + Note that this hack only works for the specified VMware player version 5.0 (Source: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14074408/using-vmware-player-5-how-can-i-access-a-web-server-running-in-a-vm-via-an-exte )

- Window Firewall blocks inbound and outbound connection to 8956 and 8957 (and any ports that are not explicitly allowed) by default. Must create new Inbound and Outbound rules to allow connections.

- The VM is still internet-connected, despite not being able to ping certain websites, i.e. www.google.com, or Windows might show that there's no internet connection on VMNet8(the NAT net).

Update 2015-09-19:

As VM Player 5.0 is no longer support (See Official VM Player download page), later versions require a different trick to access VMware networking tool. More information can be found here.

A good tutorial is here