VMS beginner having issues setting up networking

All types of networks, network stacks, and protocols supported by OpenVMS.
User avatar

Topic author
halian
Member
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Apr 14, 2023 4:46 am
Reputation: 0
Location: Central Florida
Status: Offline
Contact:

VMS beginner having issues setting up networking

Post by halian » Mon Apr 24, 2023 7:07 pm

Hello all!

I've been following Raymii's guide to setting up hobbyist amd64/VMS to the letter, and yet my VM is unable to ping outside addresses; anytime I attempt to, it throws “ping: sendto: no route to host” for IP addresses, or “%SYSTEM-F-UNREACHABLE, remote node is not currently reachable” for named websites. What do I do? 😓
Absolute beginner to VMS; please be patient :(


gdwnldsksc
Contributor
Posts: 23
Joined: Sat Apr 22, 2023 3:56 am
Reputation: 0
Status: Offline

Re: VMS beginner having issues setting up networking

Post by gdwnldsksc » Wed Apr 26, 2023 1:22 am

Sounds like the NIC isn't bridged, but set up for host-only networking or perhaps NAT based networking.

The VM configuration needs to be a bridged setup for it to be "on the network" like any other machine connected if you want it to be on the regular network without any extra hoops to jump through, so it'll act like any other computer or machine directly connected to your network.

Given that 'host-only' was mentioned before, this network configuration will never have internet access.

Under your VM settings, go to network, and change the adapter to "Bridged Adapter" and select the name of your network interface that's connected to your network. Then, the VM should be able to function/act like it's part of your normal 192.168.1.0/24 network, and you can assign it an IP in that range and use your regular 192.168.1.1 gateway and it should work.

FWIW, VMware Workstation and ESXi are what i've been using, and have been a pleasant dream to work with. I imagine VMware player, which is free, would be the same. I've got vbox around for some older/odd OS compatibility stuff that Hyper-V and VMware can't handle for various reasons

In my scenario, Hyper-V is enabled, both vbox and vmware work with hyper-v enabled, vmware doesn't require mucking with core isolation settings or disabling the hyper-v hypervisor (as advised, i think just turning off core isolation/memory protection would be enough) however. Yes, I'm running VMs under vbox, vmware, and hyper-v all at the same time on the same machine :)
Last edited by gdwnldsksc on Wed Apr 26, 2023 1:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar

imiller
Master
Posts: 136
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2019 8:45 am
Reputation: 0
Location: South Tyneside, UK
Status: Offline
Contact:

Re: VMS beginner having issues setting up networking

Post by imiller » Wed Apr 26, 2023 4:08 am

I suspect you have a Host only network adaptor but what you wanted was a NAT adaptor which would allow you to reach things outside of the host.
Change the VirtualBox network setting to NAT and have a read of
https://docs.oracle.com/en/virtualizati ... ingdetails

The DHCP client then should pick up a default gateway

Configuring a default route can be done in
$@SYS$UPDATE:TCPIP$CONFIG
option 1 Core
then option 3 routing
then set a default route.

Alternately if you know the IP address
$ TCPIP SET ROUTE/DEFAULT/GATEWAY=a.b.c.d
Last edited by imiller on Wed Apr 26, 2023 4:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
Ian Miller
[ personal opinion only. usual disclaimers apply. Do not taunt happy fun ball ].


gdwnldsksc
Contributor
Posts: 23
Joined: Sat Apr 22, 2023 3:56 am
Reputation: 0
Status: Offline

Re: VMS beginner having issues setting up networking

Post by gdwnldsksc » Wed Apr 26, 2023 8:10 pm

imiller wrote:
Wed Apr 26, 2023 4:08 am
I suspect you have a Host only network adaptor but what you wanted was a NAT adaptor which would allow you to reach things outside of the host.
In this case, just changing the VM NIC to bridge adapter with the NIC connected to the network on the host will probably be best/easiest, and allow full access from other systems on the network in the manner of the questioner's choosing. NAT further segments it off, but will allow outbound internet. I'm not too familiar with how some applications on VMS would handle double NAT though, depending on what may/may not be used, so best not to introduce the hassle at all.

DHCP should then just pick up from the regular network/router and "just work"

User avatar

Topic author
halian
Member
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Apr 14, 2023 4:46 am
Reputation: 0
Location: Central Florida
Status: Offline
Contact:

Re: VMS beginner having issues setting up networking

Post by halian » Wed Apr 26, 2023 9:10 pm

I tried changing it to bridged already, and that changed nothing.

I'm going to try again from the start and report back.
Absolute beginner to VMS; please be patient :(


sms
Master
Posts: 317
Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2020 5:18 pm
Reputation: 0
Status: Offline

Re: VMS beginner having issues setting up networking

Post by sms » Wed Apr 26, 2023 9:32 pm

Code: Select all

> I tried changing it to bridged already, and that changed nothing.

   Too terse.  _You_ might know what all you actually did, but the
non-psychics in your audience have hardly a clue.

   If that's _all_ you did, the VMS VM network IP address would still be
on the wrong subnet.

> I'm going to try again from the start and report back.

   Sounds to me like extra work, but should be harmless.  Regardless,
you want a configuration where the VMS VM is on the same subnet as the
rest of your LAN.

> Under your VM settings, [...]

   What he said looks good to me.  But you still need to configure the
VMS system to use your 192.168.1.0/24 subnet (like all your other LAN
devices).

User avatar

martinv
Master
Posts: 102
Joined: Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:05 pm
Reputation: 0
Location: Goslar, Germany
Status: Offline
Contact:

Re: VMS beginner having issues setting up networking

Post by martinv » Thu Apr 27, 2023 1:26 am

192.168.56.x/24 is the typical VirtualBox Host-Only network provided by the software. With that, you can set up connections between the virtual machine and the host computer. But it doesn't go further than that.
Working hard for something we don't care about is called stress;
working hard for something we love is called passion.
(Simon Sinek)

User avatar

martin
Valued Contributor
Posts: 70
Joined: Tue Mar 22, 2022 6:47 pm
Reputation: 0
Location: England
Status: Offline

Re: VMS beginner having issues setting up networking

Post by martin » Thu Apr 27, 2023 7:22 am

First a disclaimer: I'm awaiting my x86 licence so can't directly model what's happening here, and I'm also not a fan of VMware since it brought down my network (at work) some years ago. I've used QEMU on various *nix systems.

There are two main sorts of software bridges: NAT and Routed.
virbr-nat.gif
virbr-routed.gif
virbr-routed.gif (11.67 KiB) Viewed 6043 times
In a NAT system the host software (VMware or QEMU) does address translation to isolate the VMs from the network. In a routed system no translation is done and the VMs can directly access the real, physical network.

I've seem 192.168.56 used as the NATed address range before. You need to set your gateway on the VMS VM to be the virtual NIC on the host machine, I'd guess 192.168.56.1 or 192.168.56.254. The network as seem from VMS will then be:
  • VMS machine: 192.168.56.X
  • Host machine: 192.168.56.1 gateway
Your host machine will then perform the translations and the host will see:
  • Host machine: 10.0.0.X
  • Router:10.0.0.1 gateway
Assuming that your host machine can contact the internet, it's set up ok. There will be some sort of VMware command to show the virtual switch, just check that it has an address for the host and VMS. Then, ensure that VMS has a gateway pointing to the switch's address.

Packets from VMS for (let's say 8.8.8.8) will have no local address and be passed to the gateway (the host machine) over the virtual switch. VMware will receive the packet, NAT it to be a 10.0.0.0 packet. Your host doesn't know about 8.8.8.8, so will pass it on to its gateway (the router) and hence out to your ISP.

Hope that clarifys things a little and demystifies the "56" addresses.
Martin
  • Retired System Manager: VMS/UNIX/UNICOS/Linux.
  • Started on a VAX 11/782 in 1984 with VMS 3.6.


sms
Master
Posts: 317
Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2020 5:18 pm
Reputation: 0
Status: Offline

Re: VMS beginner having issues setting up networking

Post by sms » Thu Apr 27, 2023 10:29 am

Code: Select all

> Your host machine will then perform the translations and the host will
> see:
> 
>     o Host machine: 10.0.0.X
>     o Router:10.0.0.1 gateway

   Or, for the original poster's LAN:

    o Host machine: 192.168.1.X
    o Router: 192.168.1.1 gateway


> [...] Windows assigned it to VirtualBox' host-only adapter when I
> installed it. [...]

   More precisely, the VirtualBox software chose it.  Windows might
_display_ it.  But, as already explained, "host-only" is not what you
want if you want the VM to communicate beyond the host system itself.

   The ".1" in "192.168.56.1" is what worried me, because I'd've
expected that to be the gateway address for that subnet.  But for a
"host-only" network (I see now), there's no need for a gateway or a
default route, because there's no communication beyond the host system
itself.

User avatar

martin
Valued Contributor
Posts: 70
Joined: Tue Mar 22, 2022 6:47 pm
Reputation: 0
Location: England
Status: Offline

Re: VMS beginner having issues setting up networking

Post by martin » Thu Apr 27, 2023 12:06 pm

sms wrote:
Thu Apr 27, 2023 10:29 am
> Your host machine will then perform the translations and the host will
> see:
>
> o Host machine: 10.0.0.X
> o Router:10.0.0.1 gateway

Or, for the original poster's LAN:

o Host machine: 192.168.1.X
o Router: 192.168.1.1 gateway
Good catch. I though I'd seen 10.0.0 quoted, but my home network is 192.168.1, just as you corrected.
Martin
  • Retired System Manager: VMS/UNIX/UNICOS/Linux.
  • Started on a VAX 11/782 in 1984 with VMS 3.6.


sms
Master
Posts: 317
Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2020 5:18 pm
Reputation: 0
Status: Offline

Re: VMS beginner having issues setting up networking

Post by sms » Thu Apr 27, 2023 2:23 pm

Code: Select all

> [...]  I though[t] I'd seen 10.0.0 quoted, [...]

   _My_ LAN is 10.0.0.0/24.  "10.0.0" is easier to type than
"192.168.x".

Post Reply