Ghost Solution Suite

 View Only

  • 1.  "Unable to detect this machine's network adapter MAC address" on VMware guest OS.

    Posted Jun 15, 2007 05:04 PM
    Hey all,
     
    I've search the Symantec and VMware forums as well as the web and I can't find a solution. I am getting the error below on all of my vmware guests, 5 total. All running Windows 2003 Server. The host is Ubuntu running VMware server v1.0.2. The NIC on the Guest shows VMware AMD PCNET accelerated adapter. I am also running the latest version of the ghost console and client. I recently upgraded trying to reesolve this issue.
     
    I can run the install the ghost client remotely from the ghost console, the service starts on the client and the icon shows up in the system tray. I have also installed the client manually.
     
    I have physical boxes that run the client fine. This is affecting VMware guests only.
     
    I have noticed in many threads that others are backing up VMware guest with no issues. Any input would be greatly appreciated.
     
    Unable to detect this machine's network adapter MAC address. This may be because no network adapter is present, or the network adapter is not correctly installed.
    2:45:30 PM 192.168.1.7:1346 sending status to  192.168.1.5:1347
    2:45:51 PM 192.168.1.7:1346 sending status to  192.168.1.5:1347
    2:46:01 PM 192.168.1.7:1346 sending status to  192.168.1.5:1347
    2:46:11 PM 192.168.1.7:1346 lost contact with  192.168.1.5:1347
    2:46:12 PM 192.168.1.7:1346 sending status to  192.168.1.5:1347
    2:46:22 PM 192.168.1.7:1346 sending status to  192.168.1.5:1347
    2:46:32 PM 192.168.1.7:1346 sending status to  192.168.1.5:1347
    2:46:47 PM 192.168.1.7:1346 lost contact with  192.168.1.5:1347


  • 2.  RE: "Unable to detect this machine's network adapter MAC address" on VMware guest OS.

    Posted Jun 15, 2007 07:25 PM
    I supposed you are running GSS 2.0.1.
    If it is; in the readme file of this version, it is clearly mentionned that VMWare Guests are not supported.
    They are recognised by the Mac address range reserved to VMWare XX-XX-XX-YY-YY.

    I imagine that you have to find another solution to make image by network.
    I do not know your goal, but it exists many solution more expensive than Ghost to make backup or migration from virtual to physique.... like PlateSpin, you can also try VMWare converter for special needs.


  • 3.  RE: "Unable to detect this machine's network adapter MAC address" on VMware guest OS.

    Posted Jun 16, 2007 03:13 AM
    Hi,

    Actually, this affects only if you select a Static MAC for VMWare machine.

    The reason is we exclude the MAC range 00:50:56:xx:xx:xx to avoid the confusion with VMWare virtual networks in host machines. This allows us to install the client in VMWare host.

    However, the static MAC range for vmware clients is the same, and they won't get detected. This came to our attention recently.

    Since VMWare does not allow any other MAC ranges to use if you select static MAC, this is kind of a dead end. Only solution at this time is to use dynamic MACs. VMWare dynamic MACs do not use this range.

    However, this only affects Console client. You can still use Ghost/Ghost32 to clone the machines. As a matter of fact use WinPE and Ghost32 if you are cloning VMWare machines, it is very much faster than DOS.

    Krish


  • 4.  RE: "Unable to detect this machine's network adapter MAC address" on VMware guest OS.

    Posted Jul 17, 2007 10:13 AM
    I found that any MAC address that starts with 00-50-56 will not report back to the Ghost Console.   The way I was able to resolve this was to go into the Guest OS on the Virtual Machine and then go to the adapter properties.  Click on the configure button and then select the Advanced Tab.  Choose the Network Address Property and change the value to a MAC address outside of the 00-50-56 range.   Once you do this restart the machine and the client should start to report to the Ghost Console. 

    The only problem that I see with this is you have to maintain a list of used MAC addresses that you assign to VM's. 

    I hope that Symantec will change the exlusion of VMware MACs.

    Message Edited by jfromm76 on 07-17-200707:13 AM



  • 5.  RE: "Unable to detect this machine's network adapter MAC address" on VMware guest OS.

    Posted Jul 17, 2007 11:30 PM
    As it happens, I made this change in the source code a couple of months ago to detect the difference between hosts and guests and only filter out these MAC addresses in hosts. The next build of GSS2 we release to technical support (probably sometime around the end of this week) does happen to include this amongst the changes it rolls up.

    [ Edit: Just to clarify this won't be a full product build but there should be an updated client installer available that has this change. ]

    Message Edited by Nigel Bree on 07-18-200703:48 PM



  • 6.  RE: "Unable to detect this machine's network adapter MAC address" on VMware guest OS.

    Posted Jul 30, 2007 01:54 PM
    Nigel,

    I just want to clarify some things.  So that I can get the right answers.   I am currently running Symantec Ghost Console version 8.0.0.984.

    You post refers to GSS2.  Is there a fix for the Ghost Console ver 8?  Or do I have to upgrade to GSS2 or another product?

    Thanks.


  • 7.  RE: "Unable to detect this machine's network adapter MAC address" on VMware guest OS.

    Posted Jul 30, 2007 06:27 PM
    Right at the moment I don't believe there aren't any plans to do this change for the 8.x series; that's more a reflection of the QA and CM effort involved in producing complete builds (which you'd need, you really want a full client installer) of the older code lines. There's a lot more more to getting new versions made than just the code changes.

    That said, I'm sure management are open to be convinced that it's worthwhile doing - and that applies to any issue with older versions. As with anything, the more customers who ask the more likely it is to get approved.