Simulating proxy in VMware

Question

I'm currently testing out a new proxy system that I'd like to try out on my own computer. Because I do not have an additional PC available, I though I'd do it with VMware. Here's what I'd like to do:

The physical computer is to make an Internet connection using the VMware proxy and not the router. The VMware machine must have two network interfaces, one to connect to the internet and one to connect to my physical machine with the proxy as DHCP.

1. Is this possible?
2. If so, how could I accomplish this?

Answer 1

There are multiple ways to do this, but here is one approach:

1. Set the VM to use bridged networking instead of NAT.
2. Disable the DHCP service (but not the DHCP client for the WAN port) on your router.
3. Give the virtual machine a fixed IP address in your router's subnet (e.g. 192.168.0.101).
4. Give the virtual machine another fixed IP address in a different private subnet (e.g. 10.234.0.1)
5. Set up the proxy and enable its DHCP service (but not its DHCP client). Set it up to distribute a range of non-routable IP addresses within your new private subnet (e.g. 10.234.0.101-150). I presume that the proxy, in this case, is meant to be the default gateway, so set up the DHCP scope accordingly.
6. Renew the host machine's DHCP lease so that it receives a new IP address from the proxy (e.g. 10.234.0.101).

Answer 2

Yes, this can be done, infact i did it myself. You need to manage the VMNets to create multiple connections to your proxy server. On linux there is a command for this, on windows a gui (i think, i'm a 'nix hacker). This is all pretty well documented in the VMWare docs.

Then you need to find a way to make your computer/browser use the proxy. If you only what to test a browser, this is easy. Just edit your browser settings. If you want to test more extensively i recomend you create a seperate VM, that shares on VMNet with the proxy to test from.

Hope this helps.