VMware 5.5 + Isolating a VM

[Manny-Tech]

I'm currently operating with three ESXi hosts with my VMs spread across the three. I have one particular machine that I haven't virtualised yet, it is a test machine for software. I would like to get this on the virtualised platform jsut for ease of use with snapshotting and reverting back etc... The problem I have and I'm not sure how I get around it is that I don't want it to be able to see our MIS server, or any others for that matter - it doesn't need to be a domain joined machine so doesn't need access to anything other than a DC for an IP address, but even then I could give it a static one.

 

Any ideas?

[3s-gtech]

Does it need internet access? If not, just delete the network adaptor when virtualising it.

[Davit2005]

Just leave the network connector disconnected. This will mean no access to the network.

 

You could also setup a vSwitch and just assign no physical network adapters to it, we have done that here. Of course if you put another VM on the vSwitch those VM's would be able to talk to each other if they were on the same logical network.

[penfold]

You could add a new switch but do not attach the physical NIC to it. The way we have done it is to add a"sandbox" vlan and have no Physical adapter connected. That way you can move it on and off the network by changing the VLAN in VMWare. But if it is to be used as a test machine you may find that it is useful to have it connected to your network as any other normal machine to ensure you are testing fully.

[Manny-Tech]

If I disable the NIC won't that stop me getting to it over the network? I would like to RDP into it.

[penfold]

You can open a console session onto the VM, but I don't really think this is a VMWare issue. If you want a network connection so you can RDP to it, this would be the same as isolating any machine from accessing your servers no?

 

Edit: How do you currently do it with your existing test machine?

Edited May 6, 2015 by penfold

[Manny-Tech]

That's the thing, previously it was a standalone laptop with no network access. I only want it virtualised so I can back it up with Veeam and make use of snapshots etc.. when testing.

[penfold]

In that case you can do as others suggest and disable the NIC, but you will need to use the console in order to gain access to it. Personally for testing purposes I just create a Virtual standard machine with the same access as our normal machines for testing.

[Manny-Tech]

In the end I created a seperate VLAN for the test machine, also a VLAN for the clients who need to use it and gave that VLAN access to the test machine VLAN plus the rest of the curriculum network. That way the clients that need access to it can still see everything else on the network, plus the test machine, and the test machine can't see anything else.