Network cuts off when using Bridged mode on Virtual Machine

Question

I have tried Parallels Desktop 6, VMWare Fusion and VirtualBox when trying to run a Virtual Machine with a Bridged network adapter. I simply select the adapter interface (en0) and then press on.

When the VM Loads, I try to load a web page on my mac system and nothing loads, the only way to bring my network back is to restart my system without starting the virtual machine.

The NAT type connection works but I'm looking for a bridged mode as I will be running a server on that Virtual Machine.

Added detail:

It's on a desktop machine, but I have done some tests.

I had tried setting the MAC address of the bridged interface in the VM to the same one of my physical adapter. This still broke my systems connection to the network.

I then tried To run in bridged mode, stopped the VM then used:

ifconfig en0 down
ifconfig en0 up

to restart my adapter. This worked and gave my connection back. But when it's done with the VM running nothing works. So I'm kind of lost here.

Answer 1

If this is a work system, your network admins may have the switch configured to only allow a specific MAC address from a specific port and may be disabling that port when the switch sees another MAC from the VM.

Answer 2

I have +1'ed OldWolf as it is what I would say.

However, I will try to give an answer that gets around this.

If you are in an environment where you have only one RJ45 port enabled to you, or a managed network, If you purchase a RJ45/Ethernet Router (A router with a RJ45 port instead of an RJ11 and modem), then set it to forge the MAC address of your machine... It should give you the ability to have virtual machines in bridged mode.