I am currently testing testing an IMac (2GHz Core 2 Duo, 2 Gig RAM) to see if it will run AutoCad 2007 well enough to be used on parallels, the virtual machine will be Windows XP connected to Active Directory.

I would like to able to forward ports to the virtual machine i.e. remote desktop (TCP 3389) so people on the network can connect to the virtual machine. The Mac however will have a public IP address

Guides I have looked at the net for this have mostly stated to forward ports on the router which is no use to me as the forwarding would have to be done on the Mac itself

Currently I am running the machine in host only mode and using connection sharing on the Mac so the virtual XP machine can get out onto the net. This works fine but of course it won't accept any incoming connections until the relevant ports have been forwarded, so

IP 193.113.234.234 for example on the Mac (Public)
IP 192.168.2.2 on the Virtual XP machine (private)

I have used Nat mode on parallels itself also which allocates IP's in the 10.xxx.xxx.xxx range but this would have the same problem by default, I can't find forwarding options in parallels

of course Bootcamp and dual boot would would cure this but then comes the cloaning issue (IIRC Bombich has a solution for this)

could certain ports be forwarded to the virtual IP on the Mac itself?

 

Let's see if we can get this working for you.

The firewall config in OS X is nice and simple, which is not what we really want, as it strips away some of the more advanced features that ipfw provides. All is not lost. Download Flying Buttress. It's a GUI for ipfw and allows advanced firewall config.

There is a section in there called "IP Sharing", which has a "Redirected Services" list, and if you click the "Add Service" it allows you to port forward, or that is at least what it looks like.

Give it a shot and see if it works. I think it'll do what you want, and you may want to post your question on the support forum for Flying Buttress as it's quite possible others are in the same situation as you and have got it working.

As for BootCamp and the cloning issue, what exactly do you mean? If it's to do with backup and restore of the partition, have a look here at my little write up on how I've been able to backup and restore an NTFS formatted BC partition.

 

Markus, many thanks for this, I'll give this a try the start of next week and check the forums on that website