Technical Tip: FortiGate VMWare Workstation traffic not working due to stopped VMware service

FortiGate can run as a Virtual Machine on the VMware workstation hypervisor. The FortiGate VM will associate its virtual interface with the VMware hypervisor settings. 

In some cases, the FortiGate-VM will not forward traffic even though the FortiGate has been correctly configured as shown below:


As shown, the FortiGate has been correctly configured to retrieve a DHCP address from VMware, but the ping command to 8.8.8.8 is failing.

To resolve this issue, it is beneficial to check if the VMware NAT and DHCP Service are running in Windows.  Use Windows Key + R and type services.msc to access this.

The screenshot below shows that the DHCP and NAT services from VMware are showing as 'stopped'.

'Right-click' these services and start them. They should show as 'Running':

After starting the services, try to ping again and confirm that it works on the FortiGate.

Related article:
Technical Tip: Installation of FortiGate VM using VMware OVF file