Configuration steps to allow external internet access to a ]po[ VM

The following section provides some help on how to make a locally running VMware accessible from the Internet.

To avoid security risks please make sure that you are running the latest versions of ]po[ and underlying OS. Watch the security bulletin at sourceforge.com and subscribe to our RSS feeds.

You would need to dispose of a DSL line with a fixed IP address. Setups with dynamic IP are theoretically possible but cumbersome to run since they require a DNS service (such as DynDNS or similar) which needs to be re-configured whenever the IP address is changing.

Configuring VM

Configure fixed IP adress for your VM
Set Network Adapter of VM to Bridged (NAT works in some cases too)

Configuring Router

Open port 80 and route all traffic to the IP of VM
Open console and look for "Routing set up" or similar and configure accordingly.

Configuring HOST machine

Make sure that the security policies of your host machine allow access to VM. Check applications such as NORTON, ZONEALARM etc.

Debugging

Does VM have access to internet?

Open console in VM and try to ping an arbitrary website that allows ping's (www.yahoo.com usually does)

      ping www.yahoo.com

Can you establish a telnet connection to http port (default: 80) from your host machine to your VM?

Open console in HOST machine and try to telnet to your VM.

      telnet <IP_of_VM> 80

The screen should turn black and after a while you'll get a message such as "invalid HTTP request" which means that a connection could be established.

FAQs:

What's my external IP address

Use a service such as http://whatismyipaddress.com/

What's the IP of my VM?

Open console on your VM and run

      ifconfig

The result should be like

      eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0C:29:BD:CD:2D
                inet addr:192.168.234.129  Bcast:192.168.234.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
                inet6 addr: fe80::20c:54ff:febd:cd2d/64 Scope:Link
                UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
                RX packets:72924 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
                TX packets:65082 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
                collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
                RX bytes:77616899 (74.0 MiB)  TX bytes:8440430 (8.0 MiB)
                Interrupt:177 Base address:0x1400

      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:8640 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
                TX packets:8640 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
                collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
                RX bytes:6502488 (6.2 MiB)  TX bytes:6502488 (6.2 MiB)

In the above example the IP address is 192.168.234.129

Which port is my webserver running on?

Check in your VM /web/projop/etc/config.tcl (httpport), default is '80'

References to this Page: en:install_vm Categories: Tutorials (Contents)