VM WARE PLC Connection

I am new to VMs so excuse my lack of knowledge.
I am trying to connect to a Micro 820 thru Connected Workbench/RS Linx using my VM.
What Ethernet adapter (local pc or VM) do i change to PLC network.
My local PC shows 3 connections:
Ethernet
VMnet1
VMnet8
On my VM i have 2 connections showing Bridged and NAT.
In my virtual network settings i show VMnet0 (Bridged)
VMnet1 (Host Only) 192.168.131.0
VMnet8 NAT 192.168.78.0
My PLC is on 10.0.6.10
Any help is appreciated

Your VM's Bridged connection will have its own unique IP address, different from the host's. You can tell the bridged connection which host NIC to use.


The NAT adapter will share the host's IP address and connection. Its local address (inside the VM) will be DHCP and doesn't matter much (in my experience). That's the one I generally use, because I've had some issues in the past with IT policies and the sheer number of PCs and VMs that made bridged less practical (each VM on each PC needs its own unique IP address and we had about 8 VMs each on 5 hosts, so that would eat up 40 unique IP addresses).



For NAT to work, set the IP address of the HOST adapter that connects to the PLC network to a unique IP address in the same subnet as the PLC. If there aren't any other devices on the PLC network, you can use 10.0.6.* on your host, where * is anything other than 10. The subnet mask is 255.255.255.0 and you can leave the gateway blank. With NAT, if the host can ping the device, the guest usually can as well. I've encountered a few exceptions, but yours should just work.



For bridged...I'm not sure if the host and VM have to be on the same subnet or not. Either way, you change the IP address of the bridged adapter inside the VM to 10.0.6.*, where * is a unique number different from the host and different from any other device on the PLC network. You may or may not need to change the host's address to the same subnet. Either way, it needs to have a different address from the guest.

I always use the Bridged connection. This allows the VM to have its own IP address (does not need to match the Host subnet). It will then act as if it is a separate standalone PC.

But, as joseph hinted, there is one other setting to consider. You will want to specify on the Host PC which Ethernet connection (i.e. wired or wireless) your VM will use. In the VMware software go to the Edit menu and select the Virtual Network Editor. Then select the Bridged connection and in the "Bridged to" section click on the dropdown and select the hardware adapter you intend to use. Usually this would be your wired Ethernet, but you might instead use a USB Ethernet adapter. Don't use the Automatic setting as Windows will choose which physical connection to use.

OG

Operaghost said:

...Windows will choose which physical connection to use.

OG

Click to expand...

...and it will *always* choose the wrong one...

So if the VM is bridged over to the Host PC and you chose obtain ip
address automatically for the bridged vm adaptor, couldn't you set your PC to PLC network subnet and the vm would automatically point to the correct subnet?

So, a bridged adapter is essentially a separate NIC. If you set to automatic, you need to have a DHCP server somewhere to assign it an IP address.

A NAT adapter should be set to automatic inside the VM and the host's NIC should be configured to see the PLC. Generally, that means manually configured.

jsock said:

So if the VM is bridged over to the Host PC and you chose obtain ip
address automatically for the bridged vm adaptor, couldn't you set your PC to PLC network subnet and the vm would automatically point to the correct subnet?

Click to expand...

No. The point of a bridged connection is to allow the VM to operate independent of the host. Using a bridged connection means that you essentially have two separate computers. Your host and your guest.

The physical Ethernet adapter in the host can have one specific IP address (obtained automatically or manually) and the virtual Ethernet adapter in the guest will have an entirely separate IP address. Just as if they were separate PCs. How you configure one has no impact on the other. They could both be addressed on the same subnet, or they could be on separate subnets. Just like two standalone PCs.

OG

I almost always use a USB/Ethernet dongle for VM connectivity.

In my experience, VMWare does very good TCP/IP bridging but not very good USB connectivity.

In my host OS, I install drivers but disable all the services except the VMware Bridge Protocol and the NPCAP driver (for Wireshark). My host OS doesn't have an IPv4 or IPv6 address or generate any traffic at all on that adapter.

I don't let the USB dongle connect to the VM; I leave the default two emulated NICs (the Bridged and the NAT) in place, and set up either DHCP or Static IP for the Bridged one.

On your physical machine don't touch your VLAN IP Address.

Set one of your ethernet ports to a static IP address w/ subnet and gateway. Then when you go into your VM set your virtual port to a static IP address w/ the same subnet and gateway and then ping your physical machine. If it responds your VM should have access to everything your physical machine can see on that subnet.

In VMware "Virtual Network Editor" select the VMnet0, select "Bridged", and in the drop down menu choose the network port / adapter that will be used for your VM.

In the VM machine settings on the Network Adapter change the bridged one to "Custom: Specific virtual network" and set it to VMnet0

(Or if you are using VMnet0 for something else you can always create a new VMnet and even add a new network adapter to the VM and configure them to match)

Once you have that bridge set up then you can set the IP address etc.

But you should only set it up this way if you have a network port on your computer that will be dedicated to the VM -> PLC connection.

If you don't I would recommend grabbing a USB network dongle to dedicate to the VM, you can either do the above bridge method or you can just pass the USB dongle through to the VM and the VM will then use it like it was any computer configuring its network interface.