Bridges into the LAN

VMware offers three pre-set options for every adapter: "Bridged", "Host-only" and "NAT". While these options make administration more intuitive, they also hide the underlying functionality from the user. To understand the details you should opt for the Custom setup, which will display all the modes. A selection list under Custom assigns the adapter to a virtual switch (VMnet) and allows communication with other VMs in the same VMnet to start immediately.

Whether packets may leave the virtual network is determined in the configuration at "Host –> Virtual Network Settings –> Host Virtual Network Mapping". This menu is not available in a Linux host, where the vmware-config.pl script is used for configuration.

VMnets are usually pre-set to be "Not bridged" and form isolated networks. However, as soon as one of them is assigned one of the host's physical adapters, a connection to the LAN will be maintained for all its VMs.

VMnet0 is pre-set to connect with the first available physical adapter at the host, which can be verified through the "Bridged to an automatically chosen adapter" entry. Instead of the automatic option, users can explicitly choose a physical network card from the VMnet list. Several adapters can be assigned to different VMnets, for example to balance the load or to interconnect separate LAN segments.

The "VMware Bridge Protocol" controls packet transport from the virtual to the physical world. In the network configuration at the host it operates all the physical adapters, whose settings show a respective assigned VMnet. The Bridge Protocol switches the network card to promiscuous mode, which means that the card will also accept packets which are not sent to its own MAC address. This way, VMware can listen to LAN traffic and forward it to the VMnet. In the opposite direction, the Bridge Protocol tunnels VMnet traffic to the physical network card. Therefore, all of the VMs appear as independent clients with their own MAC addresses within the LAN, and run parallel to and independently of, the host.

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