Thursday, May 13, 2021

Fixing network issue in VM machine running Windows 10 running in Parallels Desktop on Mac

I have a VM setup in Parallels Desktop on my Mac. The VM is running Windows 10 OS. My internet connection works fine on my Mac; more expilicity I can browse the public and private domains, no problem!

But in Windows VM, I have problems. I am not able to get to private domains. My VM is configured in Shared Network and I am connected to VPN on my Mac. So, I should be able to use the VPN connection with my VM if its Network is Configured in Shared mode. Which is, screenshot below.

However, I am not able to get to anything via the domain name. e.g. in DOS command ping parallels.com times out.

I can access domains via their IP but not their hostname.

Everything is pointing to DNS server not being working properly.

On Parallels' Knowledge Base this problem is documented as: "

Unable to perform DNS requests over TCP in Shared network"

I include link to this page, as well as to all other pages on Internet that helped me debug and resolve the problem. Unfortunately, it was not one stop shop.

I was on an older version of Parallels Desktop for Business Edition so, I 'Uninstalled' Parallels tool from my VM, by going to Control Panel > Uninstall a Program. After a complete reboot, I reinstalled the Parallels Tools. Then I tried the ping command again. Still not responding.

I found another article: "

Network Troubleshooting your Parallels Desktop VM"

And compared the output of ipconfig /all run on my system with what was documented here. All the information, the suggested IP, and the DNS servers matched what it is supposed to be in Shared Network configuration.

So, I decided to try the second suggestion from the first article. "

Assign DNS server manually in Windows network settings."

To do so: I did the following (which was recommendation from a colleague). I have crossed out the DNS addresses and DNS suffixes, because this information is unique.