Host-Only Networking - VMware 4 User Manual

VMware Workstation 4 User's Manual
NAT also allows you to connect to a TCP/IP network using a Token Ring adapter on
the host computer.
If you use NAT, your virtual machine does not have its own IP address on the external
network. Instead, a separate private network is set up on the host computer. Your
virtual machine gets an address on that network from the VMware virtual DHCP
server. The VMware NAT device passes network data between one or more virtual
machines and the external network. It identifies incoming data packets intended for
each virtual machine and sends them to the correct destination.
If you select NAT, the virtual machine can use many standard TCP/IP protocols to
connect to other machines on the external network. For example, you can use HTTP
to browse Web sites, FTP to transfer files and Telnet to log on to other computers. In
the default configuration, computers on the external network cannot initiate
connections to the virtual machine. That means, for example, that the default
configuration does not let you use the virtual machine as a Web server to send Web
pages to computers on the external network.
If you make some other selection in the New Virtual Machine Wizard and later decide
you want to use NAT, you can make that change in the Virtual Machine Control Panel
(Edit > Virtual Machine Settings). For details, see Changing the Networking
Configuration on page 195.

Host-Only Networking

Virtual
Ethernet
adapter
Virtual machine DHCP server
Virtual Ethernet switch
(VMnet1)
Host virtual
adapter
Host-only networking creates a network that is completely contained within the host computer.
A host-only network is set up automatically if you select Use Host-Only Networking
in the New Virtual Machine Wizard. On Linux hosts, this selection is available only if
you enabled the host-only networking option when you installed VMware
Workstation.
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