I'm using Vista Home Premium 32-Bit (SP1) as the host running VMware Server 1.0.7 and a guest machine with OpenSUSE 10.3 Linux.
The Linux guest is running Samba for file sharing with the Windows host and another copy of OpenSUSE 10.3 Linux is running under Microsoft VirtualPC.
I ran Wireshark to analyze all packets coming through on ports 137, 138 and 139 (NetBIOS). I have 3 copies of Wireshark running: 1 on the host machine
Vista Home Premium 32-bit (SP1) , 1 in OpenSUSE 10.3 running as a guest of Microsoft VirtualPC and another running in OpenSUSE 10.3 as a guest of
VMware Server 1.0.7.
The NetBIOS broadcasts come in as UDP packets on port 137 and Wireshark reports inside OpenSUSE 10.3 inside VMware as Checksum incorrect
(maybe caused by "UDP checksum offload?") . This results in the host PC name never being resolved in the Samba Network Servers list in Nautilus.
However, the exact same copy of OpenSUSE 10.3 running inside Microsoft VirtualPC resolves the UDP broadcast packets fine and shows the Vista
PC host name in the Samba Network Servers list and I can open it up and browse the shared folders.
I went into the NIC Configure -> Advanced tab and changed the UDP Checksum Offload (IPv4) from Rx & Tx Enabled to Disabled and a few moments later,
OpenSUSE 10.3 under VMware began to get the UDP broadcasts properly (as shown in Wireshark) without the checksum errors and then Samba showed
the Vista host PC name in the Network Servers list and I was able to browse the shared folders.
I think this is a deficiency with VMware Server when using Bridged Networking that is failing to accept the UDP broadcast packets when UDP checksum offload
is enabled. Microsoft VirtualPC doesn't seem to have any issues with the checksum offload feature of Vista at all.
Can anyone explain why I have to disable UDP checksum offload in Vista to make this work for VMware Server? Will VMware Server address this in an upcoming
bug fix?
Thank you!