How can I connect via SSH (Putty) to my VMWare machine (Ubuntu)?

Question

I'm trying to connect to my VMWare (Workstation 7.1.3) machine (Ubuntu Lucid) via SSH. I've read through some other posts, but I can't figure this out. I ran ifconfig, and got a inet addr: and Bcast and Mask: which appear to be IP addresses. If I try to connect via Putty SSH to any of those addresses, it doesn't work. I also tried connecting to my IP address (from whatismyip.com).

Note: This is all taking place on the same desktop computer.

Answer 1

Is the package openssh-server installed on your Ubuntu VM? You'll need that package if you want to connect to it by SSH.

You can make sure by opening a terminal (through VMWare's console, I guess) on Ubuntu and running:

sudo apt-get install openssh-server

Answer 2

Are you using Bridged Mode? NAT mode is the default, and won't let you connect to your VM guest.

If you make some other selection in the New Virtual Machine Wizard and later decide you want to use bridged networking, you can make that change in the Virtual Machine Control Panel (Edit > Virtual Machine Settings).

See VMWare Bridged Networking and Changing the Networking Configuration for details.

Answer 3

NAT mode is the default, and won't let you connect to your VM guest.

Even in NAT mode, this used to work until VMPlayer ~ 2.5 (you just had to use the private IP; 192.168.X.Y). Don't know why this isn't working anymore (this was so useful).