Smart Security 3.0.672 causing VMPlayer issues over bridged network

[GeneNZ]

Hi there,

We currently have recently deployed Eset Smart Security 3.0.627 throughout our organization, and have recently discovered an issue with it and VMPlayer (version 2 and above).

The issue we are experiencing is we get some general network problems when the WinXP Virtual Machine running is configured in Bridged Ethernet Mode. These general network issues include things like:

- Not being able to get an IP address from DHCP when the IP address has been released. The moment Eset Firewall is turned off, the VM is this able to get an IP address.
- Not being able to authenticate against any servers running Samba (the password dialog appears). When the firewall is turned off, the VM is able to access the Samba share with no issues.
- On the other hand, when the VM has an IP address, it is able to do some network things, like ping servers.

I have tried various solutions, including adding rules and policies to the firewall, ensuring the networks are in trusted zones, turning off eset firewall features one at a time to determine what the cause is. Again to no avail.

For the time being we are able to use the VM's in NAT/host-only configuration mode with none of the above issues. But this is not ideal, since we should have access to all options as we need them.

If anyone has any solutions, it would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Gene Tang

[shansmi]

have you tried putting the firewall in Interactive Mode and letting it learn all these services?

[GeneNZ]

{QUOTE-> have you tried putting the firewall in Interactive Mode and letting it learn all these services? <-QUOTE}

I have indeed. I have a solution from ESET Support:

{QUOTE-> Open up the ESET Smart Security window and press F5. Select Personal Firewall and change the filtering mode to Interactive Mdoe. Select Rules and Zones under Personal firewall and click on the Setup button under Zone and rule editor.

Click on the Zones tab and create a new zone that includes the IP range of that VM bridged connection. Once you have that zone created, click on the Rules tab and create a rule that allows all traffic for that zone.

Next, in the Advanced setup menu, click on Protocol Filtering under Personal firewall and select 'Applications marked as Internet browsers and email clients.'

Under Web Access Protection > HTTP > Web Browsers, make sure only your actual web browsers are selected (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, etc.).
<-QUOTE}

Basically creating rules in the Personal Firewall fixed the problem. By allowing access to each of the VMPlayer executables fixes the problem. However, I'm lazy, and simply gave full access in and out to our private subnet.