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Pascal6662
Contributor
Contributor

Multiple NICs on host confuse VMware Workstation

My Windows 7 host has two NICs.  One is connected to the LAN and receives an IP and default gateway via DHCP.  The other has a static IP with no gateway and is used occasionally to connect directly to another device.  I have tested both with Linux and Windows guests and both have the same problem.  I have only tested with guests configured for NAT.  For testing I have run continuous pings on the host to both the default gateway and a host on the Internet.  At no time does the host lose network connectivity, however, any time the 2nd NIC in the host gains or loses link all guest OSs show the virtual NIC as disconnected for around 10 seconds.

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Dayworker
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I think this is a known problem and exists since many years. Therefore I suggest you to disable the "Auto-Bridging/Connect" and connect all host NICs manually with a given vmnetX. The first NIC must ever be connected with the vmnet0 (Bridged). All further host NICs have to be manually connected to an unused vmnicX (vmnet2-7 and vmnet9-10 are free by default).

Example:

vmnet0 = 1st host NIC

vmnet2 = 2nd host NIC

vmnet3 = 3rd host NIC

Later in every VM config. Add a NIC, change it to custom (available modes are Bridged, Host-only, NAT and Custom) and use the scroll-down menu on the right side to switch to the desired vmnetX. After switching to for example vmnet2, the VM will work in ip-range of the second host NIC. The ip-range is changeable only in the host network configuration. If you configure an IP outside the ip-range of the connected vmnetX, your VM will have no network access. If you configure a VM with Bridged, the VM will communicate to the outside through all with Bridged assigned vmnetX. Therefore should you use ever the custom NIC interface, if you have more than one NIC in host and want to use the Bridged interface.

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