pvsnatd???????

J

judger48193

Member
Just upgraded my Win 2000 Pro to XP Pro. It wasn't fun. I am running Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac, Build 5608. Whenever I boot up I get an Allow Deny box for pvsnatd. I never got this under Win 2000. I am pretty sure that it is a Parallels thingie.

Questions:

- What is it and what is it for?

- How do I get it to stop popping up?

Windows is my main OS since the Mac failed to have many "essential" apps that I use constantly that I can convert to. Your help is greatly appreciated on this over a week long project involving many issues like this.
 
pvsnatd is the Network Address Translation (NAT) service for Parallels.

Did you change the Network Adapter settings in your Virtual Machine configuration?

You could try reinstalling Parallels Desktop 3.0 or changing your Mac Firewall settings.
 
joevt, thank you for the quick reply. I am not the world's best networking guy, but the VM has the network adapter as Realtek 8029(AS) and the settings look exactly like the Parallels Help page under network adapter except for the Mac address of the PC. In XP, My Computer -> hardware has the network adapter as Parallels Network Adapter Version 3.0.5608.0 dated 6/9/2008.

Does that look right and am I looking at the areas you suggested? Any other thoughts?
 
I was referring to Configure -> Hardware -> Network Adapter.

I think you need to change your Mac Firewall settings.

Have you tried searching for pvsnatd on Google? I think you'll find some suggestions that way too.

I'm using Parallels Desktop 5. The name of the NAT service is prl_naptd. I had my Mac Firewall turned off. I turned it back on now and started a VM. After a couple minutes, The Allow/Deny option appeared for prl_naptd.

I think one way to fix this problem without turning off the Firewall completely is to go to System Preferences -> Security -> Firewall -> Advanced and add prl_naptd (pvsnatd in your case) to the list.

prl_naptd is at /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/MacOS/
I think pvsnatd is at /Library/StartupItems/Parallels/
 
joevt, thanks again for the quick reply.

joevt said:
I was referring to Configure -> Hardware -> Network Adapter.
Click to expand...

In the VM config? Or Mac System Preferences? Or Win XP Control Panel? Or????

joevt said:
I think you need to change your Mac Firewall settings.

...

I think one way to fix this problem without turning off the Firewall completely is to go to System Preferences -> Security -> Firewall -> Advanced and add prl_naptd (pvsnatd in your case) to the list.

...
Click to expand...

Checked my Mac firewall and it does allow incoming connections to pvsnatd in System Preferences -> Security -> Firewall. Is allowing incoming connections sufficient to keep pvsnatd happy?

By the way, I did not notice a pvsnatd pop-up when I booted today. Not sure under what conditions it pops up. Any ideas?

Thanks a bunch, joevt.
 
Yes Virtual Machine -> Configure... -> Hardware -> Network Adapter. I don't think you have anything wrong there. I was just wondering if you changed those settings from after you upgraded to Win XP.

I think allowing incoming connections is sufficient if an Allow/Deny message doesn't appear again.

I don't know what causes the Allow/Deny message to appear. Some outside service is trying to contact pvsnatd or your PC for some reason. Little Snitch is a utility to track incoming and outgoing traffic. Maybe it will give you a clue. There might be a command line utility that does the same thing.
 
pvsnatd pop-up back.

Went into Finder -> System Preferences -> Security -> Firewall and selected "Allow only essential services". It was set to "Set access for specific services and applications".

We'll see if this changes pvsnatd pop-up situation.
 
Was pvsnatd still in your System Preferences -> Security -> Firewall with the allow incoming connections option set?

What version of OS X are you using? I'm using 10.6.4.
 
Yes, pvsnatd is still listed in the window entitled File Sharing (AFP). However, I set the option "Allow only essential services" as explained in my previous post.

The only other more permissive option is "Allow all incoming connections" which sounds unwise to me.

I am running Mac OS X 10.5.8. In order to run 10.6, one needs to go to Parallels 5.0 to support my XP VM. Since I was converting to XP Pro due to an obsolete Win 2000, I did not want to also change the Parallels version from 3.0 at the same time. My next steps would be to convert to a higher Parallels version and then go to OS X 10.6 after that to get a zippier/more efficient resource using Mac.

My Windows VM is way to important to my PC/Internet usage to risk too many changes at once and then find out nothing works.
 
The Mac OS X 10.5.8 help for the Firewall settings does not match the actual settings I see when running Mac OS X 10.5.8. It describes a "Block all incoming connections" option which I don't see (I think this refers to the "Allow only essential services" option). It also describes a "Limit incoming connections to specific services and applications" which I think is actually called "Set access for specific services and applications".

I think that "essential services" is defined as the services that you turn on elsewhere in System Preferences and appear above the line in the Firewall list (e.g. File Sharing, Web Sharing, Screen Sharing).

Therefore, the option you want to use is "Set access for specific services and applications" which includes the essential services and can include other apps like pvsnatd that you can add yourself.
 
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