Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2010 11:22:51 +0100 From: David Evans <dave.evans55@googlemail.com> To: FreeBSD Net <freebsd-net@freebsd.org> Subject: Subject: Re: Bridge problems, possibly due to proxy arp on Parallels Desktop Message-ID: <4CC94EFB.1020904@googlemail.com>
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[ posted to freebsd-net@freebsd.org 2010-10-28 ] I believe I have now found the answer to my problem. The rule is simple: You cannot bridge a Desktop virtual NIC. The reason for this, I believe so far, is that Parallels have only implemented a simplified version of bridging on their bridged networking scheme. If you try to use more than one MAC address per NIC, it get confused and fails in mysterious ways: ping only works when another ping is running; ARP replies go to the wrong NIC; ping does not work for certain combinations of hosts. Obviously, what Parallels have implemented is perfectly adequate for 99.9999% of users; it's only people like me who insist on testing everything to destruction. I have now built a VPN on top of the existing network without using any bridging to a Desktop virtual NIC. On one VM I am running FreeBSD with 3 VPN servers bridged together. On another VM I am running a FreeBSD client. Another FreeBSD client runs on a PC. A third client runs on OS X. It is all working just like I expected. Of course you would not normally run 3 servers on one machine but would combine them into one, but I'm only testing. It is certainly very useful to be able to run all this on virtual machines. There is no way I could have tested this out on my available hardware. It has been an interesting learning experience.
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