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Vmware network settings. Wmware workstation network setup in virtual machines

Networking in VMware Workstation and VMware Server.

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Use of desktop virtualization platforms, both on home computers and in production environment enterprises, in recent times becomes especially popular. Many users use virtual machines for training, running software, written for a different operating system than the installed one, as well as creating portable user environments that are decoupled from specific hardware. AT corporate environment virtual machines allow you to safely test software in various configurations of guest operating systems, while using specialized virtualization platform tools that increase the efficiency of the development and testing process. In addition, one of the most important advantages of virtual machines is the ability to combine them into virtual networks, which allows you to simulate the behavior of virtual machines on one computer. distributed systems consisting of both applications for end user, and various kinds of servers, in a heterogeneous environment. The flexibility of virtual machines in terms of the resources allocated to them and the extensive possibilities for maintenance and performance optimization make it easy to manage many various configurations virtual machines and create optimized, hardware-independent applications packaged in virtual machines. These virtual machine components can then be networked in various ways to simulate various systems.

VMware products in terms of organizing such models for testing are this moment market leading. June 2007 VMware product Workstation 6 received a magazine award visual studio Magazine like The best decision in the Development Tools category. This was largely due to the presence a large number tools that can significantly increase the speed of development and testing, simplify the procedure for deploying applications and setting up network interaction between them. desktop platform VMware virtualization Workstation has become so popular that Microsoft company decided to take a not entirely honest step in relation to license policy operating system virtualization Windows families Vista: Some editions of Vista cannot be virtualized. This situation could not suit VMware, which began the struggle for the free use of operating systems on virtualization platforms. In addition, VMware is betting heavily on VMware Fusion, which provides the most seamless integration between Mac OS and Windows Vista(codenamed Unity) and showing truly fantastic results: the user works as if "in two worlds".

Version 6 of VMware Workstation introduces many new features and capabilities, including networking. The most significant improvement is the ability to create up to ten virtual network adapters for a virtual machine.

Principles of networking between virtual machines

VMware-based virtual machines allow users to create various combinations virtual systems running on different principles network interaction. The foundation of a VMware network are the following components:

  • virtual switches (Virtual Switches)
  • virtual network interfaces (Virtual Ethernet Adapters)
  • virtual bridge
  • built-in DHCP server
  • broadcast device network addresses(NAT, Network Address Translation)

The fundamental element of networking in VMware Workstation and VMware Server is the virtual switch. It provides networking of virtual machines in a manner physical device: There are ports on the virtual switch to which the virtual network interfaces of virtual machines, as well as other components of the virtual infrastructure within the host, can be bound. Multiple virtual machines connected to the same virtual switch belong to the same subnet. A virtual bridge is a mechanism by which a computer's physical network adapter is bound to virtual network interfaces. The built-in VMware DHCP server allows virtual machines to automatically obtain an IP address on their subnet, and a virtual NAT device provides network address translation when communicating with an external network virtual machines.

3 types of networking between virtual machines

VMware Workstation and VMware Server products provide users with the ability to assign one of three virtual machine base types network communication for each of the virtual network adapters:

  • Bridged
  • host-only

Each of these types of networking can be used to various options use of virtual machines and it is necessary to carefully select the type of network interaction of the virtual machine for its more efficient use in conjunction with other components of the network infrastructure.

This type of networking allows you to bind network adapter virtual machine to the physical network interface of the computer, which makes it possible to share network card resources between the host and virtual system. A virtual machine with this type of networking will behave towards external network host system as independent computer. You can assign a custom IP address to such a machine in home network or the organization's network, or it will receive it from an external DHCP server. This type of networking is assigned by default for the virtual machine that you create, because it is the easiest way to organize networking between the virtual machine, the host, and the external network. The structure of Bridged Networking is given below.


The guest system's virtual network adapter connects to the VMnet0 virtual switch, which also has a virtual bridge connected to it that communicates directly with the physical network adapter.

In order to assign the Bridged networking type to a virtual machine, you need to go to the "VM" menu, then "Settings", on the "Hardware" tab, select the virtual network Ethernet card and set the Network Connection group switch to Bridged.

This type of networking is optimal for software testing purposes when you need to set up a virtual network within the host, and virtual machines do not need access to an external network. The virtual subnet has a DHCP server connected to the VMnet1 virtual switch and assigning IP addresses from the specified range to virtual machines (192.168.179.128 - 192.168.179.254 by default). The structure of Host-Only Networking is given below:


The guest virtual network adapters connect to the VMnet1 switch and communicate on the 192.168.179.0/24 subnet. The host system also creates a virtual network interface, connected to VMnet1, which allows you to interact with virtual machines.

In order to assign a Host-Only type of network interaction to a virtual machine, you need to go to the "VM" menu, then "Settings", select the virtual Ethernet network card on the "Hardware" tab and set the Network Connection group switch to the Host-Only position.

This type of networking is very similar to Host-Only, with one exception: an IP address translation (NAT) device connects to the VMnet8 virtual switch. A DHCP server is also connected to this switch, distributing addresses from the specified range to virtual machines (by default 192.168.89.128 - 192.168.89.254) and, directly, the virtual machines themselves. The NAT device allows IP address translation, which allows virtual machines to initiate connections to the external network without providing a mechanism for accessing virtual machines from outside. The structure of NAT Networking is given below:


In the host operating system as well as for Host-Only Networking, a virtual network interface is created for the VMnet 8 switch, allowing the host to communicate with virtual machines.

This model of network interaction is optimal from a security point of view (since it is impossible to initiate a connection to a virtual machine from outside), but it significantly reduces network performance (sometimes up to 20-30 percent). A NAT connection can be used, for example, to safe work to the Internet from a virtual machine.

In order to assign a NAT network interaction type to a virtual machine, you need to go to the "VM" menu, then "Settings", on the "Hardware" tab, select a virtual Ethernet network card and set the Network Connection group switch to NAT.

Each virtual machine can have multiple virtual network adapters connected to different virtual switches that implement different types of networking. On the VMware Server 1.0 platform, up to four virtual network adapters can be created for one virtual machine, on the VMware Workstation 6 platform - up to ten. In order to add a virtual network adapter to a virtual machine, go to the "VM" menu, select "Settings", then on the "Hardware" tab, click the "Add" button and select "Ethernet Adapter" in the wizard for adding virtual devices. After that, in the wizard, assign the type of networking for this adapter and click "Finish".

Setting up a virtual network using the Virtual Network Editor

Appendix Virtual Network Editor, included with VMware Workstation and VMware Server, is a powerful virtual network management tool. In order to use it, you need to run the vmnetcfg.exe program from the Workstation or Server folder, or select Virtual Network Settings from the Edit menu.


The first tab of the virtual network editor shows the available virtual networks, their description, the subnet they form, and whether the DHCP server is enabled for it. Going to the "Automatic Bridging" tab, we will see the following picture:


Here we can let the VMware platform itself choose the appropriate physical network adapter to bind to the virtual bridge (if there are several network cards), and also add physical adapters to the list for which you do not need to create a bridge. If you have one network card, it is recommended to leave everything as it is. Next, we can go to the "Host Virtual Network Mapping" tab.


Here we can bind host network interfaces (both physical and virtual) to VMnet virtual switches. By default, the virtual network interfaces VMnet1 and VMnet8 are bound to switches for Host-Only and NAT, respectively. Physical interface bound to the VMNet0 switch. For each of the switches, we can assign a subnet by assigning an address and a subnet mask:

We can also bind a DHCP server to a virtual switch, which is bound to one of the host's network interfaces. This functionality duplicates the DHCP tab and will be described later. Let's now consider creating our own subnet based on the idle VMnet2 switch, which begins with the Host Virtual Adapters tab.


Here we see virtual host adapters for Host-Only and NAT networking, their corresponding virtual switches and device statuses. We can disable or enable virtual devices and remove them altogether. Let's add our virtual adapter to create a subnet of virtual machines by clicking on the "Add" button. Add the VMnet2 adapter and click the Apply button. As a result, we have one more virtual network interface on the host and a subnet with an automatically assigned address like 192.168.x.0/24. On the "Host Virtual Network Mapping" tab, we can make sure that the created adapter is bound to the VMnet2 switch, and view or change its subnet. Next, let's go to the next tab, where we can attach a DHCP server to various virtual switches.


Here we can see that the DHCP server is running for VMnet1 and VMnet8 virtual switches. We can also add the switch to the list of DHCP server clients by clicking the "Add" button, and it does not matter if any network interface of the host is bound to it or not. At the bottom you can also see the status of a service that supports DHCP ( vmnetdhcp.exe) and we can stop, start or restart it.

Add the VMnet2 switch with the "Add" button and click "Apply". DHCP is now assigned to our subnet, and we can edit its properties by clicking on the "Properties" button:

Here, in addition to the range of IP addresses assigned to virtual machines, we can configure the duration of the lease of IP addresses by DHCP clients (default and maximum). Thus, by attaching a DHCP server to the switch and creating a virtual host network adapter bound to it, we created our own subnet of the Host-Only type.

As mentioned above, Host-Only networking differs from NAT in the absence of a single NAT device. This device, which performs IP address translation of virtual machines, can be bound to only one virtual switch and virtual host network interface. By default, the VMnet8 switch and the virtual network adapter associated with it are used as the basis for networking through NAT. On the last tab"NAT" you can change the parameters of this network interaction:


In order to assign a NAT device to our VMnet2 network, select it from the combo and click Apply. After that, our virtual subnet on the VMnet2 switch becomes protected from penetration into it from the outside, and virtual machines through the NAT device can initiate outgoing connections to the external network, which will be processed by the VMware NAT server. The address translation service is implemented by the vmnat.exe process. On this tab, it can also be installed, launched and restarted. For NAT server settings, click the "Edit" button.

Here you can configure the IP address of the gateway used by the NAT device, timeout UDP protocol(User Datagram Protocol) in minutes (how long the binding of the UDP protocol to the NAT network lasts) and Config port - the port on which you can get information about the status of the NAT device.

The "Active FTP" checkbox allows or prohibits opening an incoming connection from an external FTP server in Active Mode. If the checkbox is not checked, single-channel Passive Mode will be used. The “DNS” (DNS, Domain Name System) button allows you to manage the DNS forwarding settings (redirecting requests to DNS). This feature can only be configured for Windows hosts. The OUI (Organizationally Unique Identifier) ​​checkbox should only be checked if you have changed the first part of the virtual machine's MAC address, which identifies the manufacturer of the network card (by default, VMware assigns its own OUI to all machines), and you want to allow these machines to use the NAT device .

The NetBIOS protocol parameters include the NBNS (NetBIOS Name Service) name processor timeout, the number of retries for NBNS requests, and the NBDS (NetBIOS Datagram Service) timeout.

Building networks from virtual machines with multiple network adapters

As mentioned earlier, each virtual machine can have multiple virtual network adapters associated with different networking types and switches. By adding new network interfaces to the virtual machine with various types networking, you can deploy a real virtual infrastructure within the host system for testing complex distributed systems and for training purposes. For example, the structure of a virtual network on a host might look like this:


As can be seen from the figure, there are no problems in modeling on one physical computer difficult complex systems in which various types of servers operate, firewalls and client computers. All this can be done with Virtual utilities network editor. In addition, VMware Workstation, which is dev/test oriented, provides another tool for creating virtual networks between virtual machines, which has advanced features - Virtual Machine Teaming.

Virtual Machine Teaming in VMware Workstation

VMware defines its Workstation product category as Development and test not by chance. The VMware Workstation platform has a huge set of tools that developers and QA engineers need in software development companies. One of the most effective features of the product is the creation of "teams" of virtual machines, united by virtual network segments for testing complex systems. In essence, Virtual Machine Teaming implements the same features as the Virtual Network Editor, but allows you to create virtual networks in the most simple way by binding virtual machine adapters to different segments virtual networks. For example, we need to test next system: on one of the hosts there is a Web server that has 2 network interfaces - one for accessing it through thin client from the user's machine, the other is for connecting to the database server, where the client sends queries via the Web server. The structure of such a system is shown below:


Let's create three virtual machines, according to the structure of the model, and add one more virtual network adapter for the virtual Web server. After that, in the “File” menu of VMware Workstation, select New->Team. Next, specify where the virtual machine team files will be placed, then select the “Yes” option when asked “Add Virtual Machines to the team now”. Next, go to the window for adding virtual machines:


Here we can add virtual machines with the "Add" button. We add the required machines, click "Next" and answer "Yes" to the question "Add LAN segments to the team now" to go to the window for adding network segments.


Here we add 2 network segments for the simulated system with the “Add” button and click “Next”. Then we move on to the interesting page– the page for binding virtual network adapters to network segments.


Here we can assign virtual network adapter bindings to the virtual network segments we need by simply checking the boxes for the corresponding network interfaces in the columns with segments. In accordance with the structure of the model, we assign the LAN 1 segment for the database server and the Web server and the LAN 2 segment for the Web server and the client. Thus, after clicking on the “Finish” button, we will receive a command from virtual machines that meets the requirements of the simulated system.

After the team is created, we can start all the team's virtual machines with one click and immediately start testing the system. It should be noted that the virtual machines added to the team cannot be used independently, but only within it.

Some aspects of VMware networking

When a virtual machine starts, VMware Workstation and VMware Server automatically assign MAC addresses to virtual network adapters. The automatic address assignment system is such that virtual machines on the same host are guaranteed not to have the same MAC addresses. Therefore, if you use only one copy of the VMware platform on an organization's network, this system ensures that there are no physical address conflicts. However, if virtualization platforms are running on multiple hosts on the network at once, MAC address duplication can occur, leading to network conflicts and unavailability of virtual machines. To avoid this, you can manually assign MAC addresses to virtual machines by adding text editor vmx file with a line like this:

Ethernet[n].address = 00:50:56:XX:YY:ZZ

Where n is the sequence number (starting from zero) of the virtual machine's network interface, and XX, YY, and ZZ are the corresponding components of the MAC address.

In addition, when using a virtual infrastructure based on VMware Workstation or VMware Server in a production environment, it is worth remembering that VMnet virtual switches are actually concentrators (“hubs”), that is, they duplicate traffic on all ports of VMnet devices. This creates potential security issues because a network interface running in promiscuous-mode in one of the virtual machines can listen to traffic destined for other virtual hub clients.

Conclusion

VMware Workstation and VMware Server platforms are powerful tools for organizing networking of several simultaneously running virtual machines within a host. No other desktop virtualization platform currently on the market has the same networking functionality as VMware Workstation. When testing software, the platform's ability to model complex distributed systems is indispensable. In addition, on the VMware server platform, you can create "parks virtual servers» with its internal and external network connections, these systems are decoupled from the hardware and are very flexible in terms of porting them to another platform. In setting up virtual networks, there are many possibilities, as well as various subtleties that allow you to very, very flexibly configure virtual networks and get the maximum effect from virtual machines.

Hello! In this article, we will talk about how to set up a virtual machine VMware to the direct physical address of the network card. VMware is a fairly popular virtual machine on which you can install any operating system, but many often have problems configuring it so that it directly sees the physical network card of the machine.

So, let's get started, let's install the virtual machine itself, who does not have it installed, after installation, the network connections will appear:

We choose your and press right click mouse, and then from the context menu select the item Properties. Next, in the window that appears, click on the button Install. In choise network component we choose Protocol and press the button Add and choose from the list NWLink IPX/SPX/NetBIOS – compatible transport protocol. We are waiting for it to appear in the properties of our Connection via local network . Next in , in the list of components we find VMware Bridge Protocol and check the box next to this paragraph. Next, select it and click on the button Properties and in the field VMnet number set the value to 0.
Hard? This is just the beginning. Let's move on to LAN connection, in the list of components used by default we are looking for and select it, and then click on the button Properties. In the window that appears, you must set following settings:
Everything, save and close our LAN connection. Now let's move on to the virtual adapter − VMware Network Adapter VMnet8 and right-click on it and select the item from the context menu Properties. Let's check the box VMware Bridge Protocol, and then find in the list of components used by default - Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), select it and press the button Properties, there you need to remove all the data, you should get something like this:
Click OK, then close and right-click on the virtual adapter - VMware Network Adapter VMnet8 in Network connections, then select from the context menu Disable. You ask why we set it up, if we turn it off anyway, I will answer you this way: just in case, you never know how the virtual machine behaves.
Now on the list Network connections go to our last virtual network adapter - VMware Network Adapter VMnet1, also select it and right-click on it and select from the context menu Properties. Further in the lists of used components by default we find VMware Bridge Protocol and also check the box. Then we find the line NWLink IPX/SPX/NetBIOS Interoperable Transport Protocol and press Properties and set the following parameters:
Almost everything, there remains only to configure for this adapter Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), select it and click on the button Properties, then turn everything off and you should get something like this:
Now we save everything, go to the list of network connections and also disable the virtual network adapter VMware Network Adapter VMnet1- right-click on it and select the item from the context menu Disable. As a result, in Network connections you should get the following.

Virtual network card. Options.

To begin with, I suggest that you familiarize yourself with the connection parameters to network card virtual machine and after that we'll talk about the "virtual network editor". Open the settings of the virtual machine, this can be done from the menu "Virtual Machine" -> "Settings" or you can open the tab of your virtual machine and click "Change settings" it is also possible to use hot key(Ctrl+D).

We open the virtual machine configurator, select the network adapter and its settings appear on the right. Now let's figure out what's what here.

  1. 1. Connection type "bridge". With this connection type, the virtual adapter works directly with the physical adapter on the host machine. What does it give? This setting allows the virtual machine to communicate with the local network and the Internet if they are available to the host machine's physical adapter. The settings for the network connection in windows in this case are taken from DHCP servers which is built into the VMWare product.
  2. 2. Connection type "NAT". When using this type of connection, the adapters of the virtual and host machines create a connection between themselves, the parameters for which are set by the VMWare DHCP server. When using this type of connection, the virtual machine has access to the outside world that is connected via the physical adapter, while this machine will not be visible from the outside.
  3. 3. Connection type "Node only". This connection creates a virtual network between the virtual adapter on the virtual machine and the VMWare virtual adapter on the host machine, the settings for which are also set by the DHCP server built into VMWare. In such a network virtual computer and the host can exchange data with each other, but the virtual computer does not have access to the outside world (physical network, Internet).
  4. 4. Connection type "Other". For this type of connection, you can select any created virtual network. These virtual networks are created and configured using the "virtual network editor". The parameters for such virtual networks are similar to those described above, while in the "virtual network editor" you can also configure the parameters of the built-in DHCP server and port forwarding.

Virtual network editor

To call the editor, go to the "edit" menu -> "virtual network editor", the hotkey combination for this menu item is not assigned.

By default, three networks with default settings are created in the "virtual network editor".

VMnet0 is configured for bridging. In the settings of this connection, it is possible to explicitly specify with which adapter the bridge will be created.

The VMnet8 network uses the "NAT" connection type. In the connection settings, you can change the settings of the built-in DHCP server or disable it. It is also possible to uncheck the “connect a virtual adapter to this network” setting, this will turn off the virtual network adapter on the host machine, and if DHCP is active, the virtual machine will still have Internet access ... You can also configure “NAT settings” here. In these parameters, it is possible to forward the port from the host machine to the virtual one. Let's consider this option in more detail.


Let's say that the data coming to a certain port of the live connection on the host machine is redirected to a certain connection port of the virtual machine. Click the "add" button in the "NAT settings" and fill in the required details.

  1. 1. Host port - here you need to specify from which port of the host machine we want to redirect data.
  2. 2.Type - select the desired TCP type or UDP
  3. 3.IP address of the virtual machine - can be found in the "adapter connection properties" on the virtual machine.
  4. 4.Virtual machine port — specify the port number on the virtual machine that will receive redirected data.
  5. 5.Description - you can sign, for example, which service this port belongs to.
  6. 6. Press "OK" and test the result.

An example of how I passed standard port forIIS.

VMnet1 is configured to work with a Host Only connection. In the settings of this network, the built-in DHCP settings and the ability to create a connection with a virtual network adapter on the host are also available.

Creating and configuring a network.

I suggest trying to create a network between two virtual machines. For ease of notation, I will name both virtual machines and give the connection parameters for each machine:

SERVER is the first virtual machine running OS Windows Server 2012 consisting of working group work group. In the connection settings, in the TCP / IP parameters, the IP address (192.168.0.1) and the subnet mask (255.255.255.0) are manually specified, windows firewall disabled.

CLIENT is the second virtual machine running Windows 7, which is a member of the Workgroup. In the connection settings, in the TCP / IP parameters, the IP address (192.168.0.2) and the subnet mask (255.255.255.0) are manually specified, the windows firewall is disabled.

On both virtual machines, the connection to the VMnet1 network was selected in the network adapter settings. Using the "virtual network editor" in the VMnet1 network settings, two settings "connect a virtual host adapter to this network" and use the built-in DHCP server were disabled.


Now let's make sure that our virtual machines are in the same virtual network, for this we will use the ping command.


As we can see, both machines are connected to the same virtual network, which is isolated from the outside world and not connected to the host's virtual adapter.

I suggest adding a second virtual adapter to SERVER and configuring it to communicate with the outside world. Open the parameters of the virtual machine "virtual machine" -\u003e "parameters" (Ctrl + D) and click the "add" button. Before us is the wizard for adding new equipment, select "network adapter" and click "next". At this stage, the wizard prompts us to select the connection type for the new virtual adapter, in my case I chose "other" and pointed to the VMnet8 (NAT) network. We click "done" and we see that a second network adapter configured to connect to the VMnet8 network has been added to the virtual machine configuration.

The page presents detailed instructions Learn how to create network connections between the host and virtual machines in VMware Workstation.

The page is part of an article

You can customize the content:

A typical VMware setup without the context of the main article.
(also follow the paragraph for setting static IP addresses on the next page articles).

Configuring VMware in the context of creating a virtual proxy group.

To create a virtual local area network, for each local machine we must create virtual adapters that all computers will consider as real network cards.

To go to the settings in the top drop-down menu of the program VMware Workstation select [Edit] - [Virtual network editor ...]

The virtual network editor will open in front of us. If this is your first time creating a virtual network, let's first remove the existing default networks so as not to get confused by highlighting the network in the list and clicking the "Delete network" button.

Remember how earlier we added the word VMware c to the names of folders with virtual machine images serial number. Now we press the add network button and add networks by selecting VMware0 in the list and so on according to the required number of virtual machines.

Our networks will appear in the list of networks, now we click on each line with the name of the network and in the “VMNet Information” area under the list of networks, select the item “Host only”, the next item “Connect the host adapter to this network” should be checked. We also make sure to uncheck the box "Use local service DHCP for allocating IP addresses for virtual machines" as we will assign our own static IP addresses in the next part of the article. Perform the action for each network and click [Apply].

Next, we look at which network which “Subnet Address” belongs to, write down these numbers or remember how to see them here, since we will need these addresses to assign our address within these subnets manually. Press [OK]. The network adapters of our virtual networks should immediately appear on the main and virtual machine.

To enable network adapters on each VMware virtual machine, right-click on the name of the virtual machine and in context menu select the "Settings" item, then go to the "hardware" tab of the "Virtual Machine Settings" window. If you find a network adapter that you do not use in the list of virtual machine devices, then it is better to simply delete it, and then select the "add" tab.

The Add New Hardware Wizard will open.
Select the type of equipment to be added "Network Adapter" and click [Next].

On the next page of the wizard, in the " Network connection"Select the item" Other: specify a virtual network "and select the network" VMnet (node ​​only) "with the serial number that we assigned to this virtual machine.

We do similar actions to create new virtual network adapters on other Virtual OS. We create an adapter for each virtual machine in order to be able to monitor traffic and traffic stability (parsing) from each virtual machine separately and at the same time in one place - in the Network tab in the Task Manager of the main operating system.

Now that our adapters have been created, we can move on to configuring static IP addresses for our adapters, which is described on the next page of the article.

Hello.

Moving from one software virtualization platform to another, one has to set up network interaction between virtual operating systems. Today let's remember what's what on the networks in the legendary VMware Workstation. And in a couple of days we will look at VirtualBox networks.

VMware Workstation is an ideal solution for self-education, debugging applications, creating test lab environments. Many who take their first steps with VMware Workstation face various issues when setting up. In this article, we will look at network settings available immediately after installation VMware Workstation. This article will be of interest, first of all, to those who are just starting to understand the virtual environment.

By default, in VMware Workstation There are 3 types of virtual networks. Connect virtual machine to specific network you can from the Virtual Machine Settings menu

Bridged/VMnet0. In this connection, the virtual machine connects to the network using the host's physical network adapter. A virtual machine's virtual network adapter uses your computer's physical network adapter, allowing the virtual machine to access the same network as the physical computer. In other words, virtual machines get access to your local network.

Note that the host and guest operating systems have unique MAC and IP addresses. If a static IP address is not specified on the virtual machines, then it will receive it via DHCP, as regular computer. AT this type connections, the virtual machine has full access to the local network and can connect to other computers, and computers on the local network can connect to it.

This type of connection is used most often.


Host-only/VMnet1. The second kind of network connects the guest virtual machine and the host computer, forming private network. This connection provides network connection between a virtual machine and a physical computer (host) using a virtual network adapter available to the host operating system.

With this type of connection, the virtual machine does not have access to the local network and the Internet. Since virtual machines do not have access to the physical network, VMware Workstation provides for the use of the DHCP service to assign TCP\IP parameters to virtual machines. For a host-only virtual network, a specific subnet is used, in our case it is 192.168.52.0-254, where the virtual adapter on the physical computer has an IP address of 192.168.52.1, and all guest virtual machines using a host-only connection receive addresses from the VMware DHCP server.

Virtual machines using a host-only network can interact with each other in this network.

When using a NAT connection, the virtual machine does not have its own external network IP address. However, the virtual machine can connect to computers from an external network using the standard TCP/IP protocol. In this case, the virtual machine uses the IP and MAC addresses of the physical computer.

It is worth noting that by default, a computer from the local physical network cannot connect to a virtual machine.

NAT connection is selected by default when creating a new virtual machine VMware Workstation.

Since the virtual machine does not have direct access to the network, VMware Workstation uses a DHCP service to assign IP addresses to virtual machines on a private network.

Virtual network management VMware Workstation carried out in the Virtual Network Editor, which is installed by default. You can launch Virtual Network Editor directly from the Start menu by selecting All Programs, then VMware and Virtual Network Editor. You can also launch Virtual Network Editor inside the interface VMware Workstation by selecting the Edit menu and Virtual Network Editor.

After Launch Virtual Network Editor you will see a tab Summary. This tab displays all virtual networks used VMware Workstation.

automatic bridging. If the host machine, i.e. computer on which the software is installed VMware Workstation, has more than one physical Ethernet adapter, the first available physical adapter is automatically selected to be used in the VMnet0 virtual network. It is possible to add an exception to not use a specific physical adapter on the VMnet0 network.

Host Virtual Network Mapping. This tab is used to configure virtual networks in VMware Workstation. On this tab, for the VMnet0 network, you can specify the use of a specific physical adapter. For VMnet1 and VMnet8 networks, you can specify the subnet and DHCP options.

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