Virtual Server 2005 network

[quinla01]

Howdi all, any advice on this one would be great. My current environment is several workstations that connect to a router that also acts as a DNS server and a DHCP server. I would like to set up a test environment using virtual server 2005 (VS).

My priority whilst running the virtual environment is that no other computers outside the virtual environment (ie real work computers) are affected.

I would like to set up two virtual PC's running windows 2003. I would like to have one running as a DNS and DHCP server. The other is a standard 2003 server, nothing special.

The problem i have is that when i first creat the Virtual servers they pick up the the settings from the router which assisns them an IP and configures DNS for them.

So far i can think of two options, neither of which are any good. Option 1: turn off DHCP and DNS on the router, however as stated earlier i do not want it to affect real world computers which this option will do. Option 2: remove the two virtual pc's to a virtual network, this method completly separates the virtual pc's from the reals world pc's. Unfortunatley however, they can no longer see the internet which is essential to run the DNS Server.

Humm, how you no what i mean. Like i say, any help or advice would be great.

Thanks

Andy

 

[djtech2k]

I would setup virtual server so that the network connections for the workstations are local only. Then, I would setup the DNS virtual server to be allowed to communicate with the router so it can be able to communicate. To make the server VM and the workstations talk, you may want to try a multiple IP scenario or virtual multihoming. I have never had to do this, but it seems like it would work. Otherwise you could use a second router or software routing that would run inside of the primary router yet still provide internet access.