I have VMWare Workstation v9 installed on Windows 7 Professional 64-bit platform. I have two RedHat Linux guest VM's installed, networked via NAT (VMnet8 virtual network). The guests are able to connect to the Windows host and to the external network (e.g., internet) without any problems. Each guest VM can ping the other, as well as the host machine without difficulty. However, when I attempt to connect one VM guest to another VM guest using some standard TCP/IP protocol (e.g. HTTP), the connection cannot be established.
I have already verified that the guest where the 'server' component is running is listening on the correct port. For some reason, however, even though both guests are operating on the same NAT'd subnet and can ping each other, I'm unable to establish a connection from one guest to another (e.g., using some standard set of components like a web server on one guest listening on port 8080, and a web browser on the other guest attempting to access the web server). I have verified that neither guest, nor the host, has an active firewall preventing the connection.
Two questions arise from this experience that I'm hoping someone on this forum can answer:
1) What is causing this connectivity problem between the two guest machines in the NAT'd configuration? As I indicated, both guests are assigned IP addresses within the same NAT's subnet, and each can ping each other successfully (and from the host). No firewall(s) are present between the two virtual machines.
2) From a VMWare networking perspective, what is the 'best practice' given the following requirements:
-- Guests need to communicate with each other as well as with the host.
-- Guests need to connect to the outside world (e.g., internet).
-- Host needs to connect to the outside world (e.g. internet).
-- No incoming connections to the guest are required.
Thank you in advance for any advice or assistance.