Can I access an application running on Pow from a VMWare Fusion VM?

Question

I'm trying to access an application in order to test Internet Explorer against my Rails application. I have done this before, but it was when I ran my apps using Passenger and Nginx. Now that I am using Pow, I can't get it to work.

I am aware of having to change the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts file. But I don't know which IP address to use anymore. I have read the other questions regarding this topic here, and I am unable to solve my problem after reading them.

I need to do two things to begin with:

1) Figure out which Network setting to choose in the VMWare menu (NAT, Bridged (Autodetect), or Bridged (Ethernet).

2) Figure out which IP address to use for my Mac from the Windows VM so that I can set it appropriately in the hosts file on the Windows VM.

3) Find out if Pow runs on some port other than port 80.

Any help is appreciated. As of right now:

• I am running in Bridged (Autodetect) mode
• On the Windows VM, ipconfig returns settings for an adapter called Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection. My guess is that the IPv4 address is the address of the Windows VM, and the Default Gateway is the address of the Mac from the Windows VM.
• I can successfully access internet websites from IE on the Windows VM.
• I have set up the Default Gateway IP as the website of my app in the Windows hosts file, as both myapp.net and myapp.dev.
• I have set up the app in Pow as "default" by creating a symlink named "default" to the application.
• I have closed and restarted IE and tested both domains. Both domains fail instantly with no apparent attempt to access the application.
• I have also tried something else I have seen on StackOverflow, which is to use vmnet8.adapter.ip.address instead of an app name. This also fails instantly, and this "trick" address does not appear to resolve to anything at the command line in the Windows VM using a ping command.
• I have also tried the myapp.xx.xx.xx.xx.xip.io address from the Windows VM. I have tried a couple of different addresses in places of the x's to no avail.

Answer 1

I just tried something kind of out there, but it worked instantly!

• I changed to NAT mode on the Windows VM.
• I got the IP address of vmnet8 on my Mac.
• I used that address in the hosts file of the Windows VM and pointed it to myapp.local.

I closed IE and reopened it, and it worked!