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Network Basics Network Basics
VMware Workstation provides virtual networking components to create a wide range of configurations.
Option
Description
Bridged Networking
Your virtual machine is configured with defaults that create a separate unique identity on the network, as if it was a separate unrelated machine to its host. Refer to Bridged Networking.
Network Address Translation (NAT)
Your virtual machine is configured with defaults that share the IP and MAC addresses of the host. The virtual machine and the host appear with one network identity that is not discernible to the outside.
This can be useful when you are allowed a single IP address or MAC address by your network administrator. NAT is also useful to configure one virtual machine for handing http requests, and another virtual machine to handle ftp requests, both running off the same IP address or domain. Refer to Network Address Translation (NAT) for more information.
Host Only
Your virtual machine is configured with defaults that allow network access to its host and no other machine. This can be useful when you want a secure virtual machine that is not generally available, but still connected.Refer to Host Only Networking for more information.
Custom
Manually configure your virtual machine network connection
If you select the Typical setup path in the New Virtual Machine Wizard when you create a virtual machine, the wizard sets up bridged networking for the virtual machine. You can choose any of the common configurations—bridged networking, network address translation (NAT) and host-only networking—by selecting the Custom setup path. The wizard then connects the virtual machine to the appropriate virtual network.
You can set up more specialized configurations by choosing the appropriate settings in the Virtual Machine Settings editor, in the Virtual Network Editor (on Windows hosts) and on your host computer.
On a Windows host, the software needed for all networking configurations is installed when you install VMware Workstation. On a Linux host, all components are available if you choose to have both bridged and host-only networking available to your virtual machines at the time you install VMware Workstation.


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