I have a server running VMWare Server 2.0.2. The host is Debian Lenny. I have 15-20 virtual machines running, all attached to a single NAT network (named vmnet8).

I have configured VMWare's NAT (the vmnet-natd daemon) to forward some incoming to ports to one of the VMs, since it hosts some publicly accessible services. I did this via the file /etc/vmware/vmnet8/nat/nat.conf by adding lines like the following:

80 = 192.168.100.100:80

This works great, I can reach the web server on the VM at 192.168.100.100 by connecting to the host's IP address.

Sometimes, I need to add port redirections to this NAT configuration. So, I add a line to the configuration file.

Now for the question. How do I make the natd process take this new configuration into account? Clearly, restarting the host machine does take it into account, and the newly added port is forwarded. However, this is not an option on this server, so how should one do this without restarting the whole host?

Thanks for any ideas!