I am a Linux newbie, but I have successfully loaded a Linux guest before. I can't ping any other systems, not even the default gateway. I set up the guest to use DHCP (for now) and it is getting an address, I checked my (windows) DHCP server, and the guest's IP lease shows with the correct mac address. I made sure that I don't have a duplicate mac address. The Linux firewall is turned off. This has got to be something stupid I am doing, but I can't figure out what. Thanks in advance for your help.

You don't say if it's CentOS 5 or 6. Take a look at your /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 It might have NM_CONTROLLED=yes and you might not have NetworkManager running, or something similar.

Did you create a network during installation?

If you do chkconfig --list |grep -i Network what does it show? Also, does that file have ONBOOT=yes?

Lastly of course, check the VM network in the ESXi settings.

Thanks for the reply, here are the answers to your questions:

CentOS 5.5 X64
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 contents:
Yes, I created a network during installation.

I then started NetworkManager so 5 is now on

I have looked at the ESXi NIC settings (and compared it to several of my windows VMs), and I believe it is correct.
Thanks

Ok, I actually, in CentOS 5.x, wouldn't use NetworkManager.

You shouldn't have both network and NM running, I believe they get in each other's way.

Turn it back off.

Try

service network restart

See if you see any errors.

If you can't ping 8.8.8.8 or another public DNS server after doing that, try

dhclient eth0

If you get an error that dhclient is already running, then first


pkill dhclient

then try it again.

It may also be a firewall or SELinux, but let's look at the obvious first.

If you _can_ ping 8.8.8.8 but can't do anything by name, that is, can't open a browser or whatever, then it's a DNS issue.

(BTW, though others will probably help, I probably won't answer again tonight.)

I stopped NetworkManager.

dhclient returned no errors and reported that it got the address from the DHCP server.
Most of my testing has been by LAN ip addresses. It won't ping the default gateway or the (windows) DHCP server by IP address, but strangely, it is getting an IP address from the DHCP server. 8.8.8.8 won't ping either. I have firewall and SELinux off.

I might try to call VMWare support (we pay enough for it!!), but I am afraid that they will point to the guest OS, or my configuration. This is a new install, and I accepted most of the defaults.

Thanks

I've set up a bunch of these, but did it a bit differently. (Minimal install, don't set up network during installation.) I haven't had any problems, so I don't think it's something with either VMware or CentOS. However, they've all been static addresses.


Make very sure that NM isn't running. It might even be worth once again doing chkconfig NetworkManager off and rebooting--it can be a real pain to stop.

Try configuring with system-config-network-tui. Make sure there's no NM_CONTROLLED=yes in the ifcfg-eth0 file. Restart the network.

If it still doesn't work, try a static address.

After that, I'm out of ideas. I've never dealt with VMWare support myself--probably depends upon the individual. The only other thing I've run into is that if it's a cloned system, it won't see eth0, because in udev rules eth0 will have the wrong MAC address. However, eth1 will work. If this was from a clone, that might be the issue.

Does ifconfig -a show an extra ethernet card?