VMware software does not allow the virtual Ethernet adapter to go into promiscuous mode unless the user running the VMware software has permission to make that setting. This follows the standard Linux practice that only root can put a network interface into promiscuous mode.
When you install and configure your VMware software, you run the installation as root, and we create the vmnet0-vmnet3 devices with root ownership and root group ownership. We also give those devices read/write access for the owner root only. For a user to be able to set the virtual machine's network adapter to promiscuous mode, the user who launches the VMware product needs to have read/write access to the vmnetx device (/dev/vmnet0 if using basic bridged mode).
One way to do this is to create a new group, add the appropriate users to the group, and give that group read/write access to the appropriate device. These changes need to be made on the host operating system as root (su). For example:
chgrp newgroup /dev/vmnet0
chmod g+rw /dev/vmnet0
where newgroup is the group that should have the ability to set vmnet0 to promiscuous mode.
If you want all users to be able to set the virtual network adapter (/dev/vmnet0 in our example) to promiscuous mode, you can simply run the following command on the host operating system as root:
chmod a+rw /dev/vmnet0
More issues regarding promiscuous mode are discussed in Knowledge Base article 514. Please see:
www.vmware.com/support/kb/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=514.
