What's the IP of my Virtual Machine?

Discussion in 'General Questions' started by plc5700, Sep 5, 2013.

  1. plc5700

    plc5700 Bit poster

    Messages:
    5
    Hi

    When I start a Virtual machine - it get assigned an IP address.

    Is there any way I can see which IP address the guest OS was assigned, without having to open the Virtual Machine window, log into the machine and find the information within the guest OS?

    Parallels Desktop tools is installed.
     
  2. lnemo

    lnemo Hunter

    Messages:
    114
    As far as I know the IP assignment in general depends on the network adapter type chosen for the VM.

    If you activated the 'bridged' option, the VM appears as a separate computer beside your host and gets its own IP by your network's DHCP server (in a private environment this is typically a router). You can open the router's configuration page and see the list of connected devices. There you can find your VM's IP maybe even while the VM is not active as many routers show previously connected devices as well.

    If you've chosen the (default) shared network option, the Parallels NAT service acts as the DHCP server to the VM. The address room is 10.211.55.1 to 10.211.55.254 (at least in PD9 but I'm quite sure they didn't change it from PD8). As the VM doesn't appear in your network and you can't see behind the NAT 'firewall', there's no easy way (as far as I know) to determine the VM's IP from outside in this configuration. Trying one of the 'what is my IP' services in WWW from my VM in bridged mode returns just my router's IP.

    You can however open Terminal in Mac OS and type 'arp -an'. You then get a list of everything that causes traffic on your host. The VM's IP will show up in the list but you won't know which IP goes to which device. But - if you know the VM's virtual network card's MAC address (you can find it with the VM open or closed in the VM's config dialog box in 'hardware/network'), than you can easily identify which IP address your VM uses. Note: This only works with the VM running as the Parallels NAT IP assignment is terminated immediately after the VM's shutdown.
     
    BertB1 likes this.

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