Can you use VMWare as a switch with on ethernet connection?

[Frostie123]

Basically for my DSL modem, if I put it under a switch connected to four computers they each have their own IP address and can release/renew independently. My question is if I put one DSL connection directly to the computer, and run 4 VMWares, will it be possible it can act as a switch? Or am I better off buying 4 USB ethernet adapters and using each connection for each VMWare. Thanks.

[proden20]

Are you using a product such as workstation or server, or are you talking ESX?

With Workstation or Server, you could do this easily using NAT mode for your 4 guest VM's, with your host OS plugged into the gateway. The VMWare network stack will distribute IP's to the guest VM's.

With ESX, there are a number of approaches involving internal-only switches, software based routers, etc.

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Dennis Procopio - VCP

[AWo]

As you posted in the Workstation forum I assume you're thinking about using this one.

Like described in the previous post you can use the NAT virtual network switch of VMware Workstation. You're guests will receive their own IP address out of this IP network address range and VMWare takes care about the rest. Your guests will be hidden behind a virtual NAT device.

AWo

VCP / VMware vEXPERT 2009

• I rent firewood out ***

[Frostie123]

Well, I got my new DSL connection and have tried many adjustments but the IP is always the same. I know my DSL supports multiple dynamic IPs under a switch. Any configurations? Thanks again.

[AWo]

Again, if you want to use VMware as a switch for virtual machines only, you must use NAT if you have only one IP address available (the host one).

If you have a device in between the hosts and the DSL modem which receives the one Internet IP assigned by your provider and which can act as a switch/router (like a WLAN router) you can use bridged networking (because every system can get its own internal IP address).

AWo

VCP / VMware vEXPERT 2009

• I rent firewood out ***

[kingneutron]

--At any rate, you are not going to get decent network bandwidth using (4) USB2 Ethernet adapters. Better to buy (1) Gig Ethernet card and use that instead- the "virtual" IP addresses in each VM are all going to be going thru the ethernet adapter on the Host.

--If you have no desire to buy a cheap physical router/switch, you might download a VM router (or Squid) appliance; but that would make things unnecessarily complicated. You'd have to give it the single IP from your DSL with Bridged net, and figure out how to share it among your host & VMs. If all you need is WWW / browsing, Squid works very nicely; but the whole range of stuff that a router can do to share a network connection is easier in hardware, as it's already built to do what you want.

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