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jaymemaurice
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Workstation: 4 virtual network adapters in one host?

I need 4 virtual nics in my virtual machine... you may be thinking "no you don't, what a silly requirement that's why 802.1q exists" but I really do need 4 virtual nics to do what I am trying to do... that said,

I tried with 5.5.4 and can only appear to get three adapters created...

so I tried modifying the vmx file of my VM, but that did not work Smiley Sad

So I guess I have a few questions...

Is it possible to make vmware workstation "support" 4 or more virtual network adapters in a virtual machine?

any crazy configuration files or regristry settings I can modify?

any reason for this limitation of 3 virtual network cards?

Does workstation 6 allow you to emulate 4 nics?

Is there any virtualization software from vmware that supports emulating 4 network cards in a virtual machine?

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RDPetruska
Leadership
Leadership

You can use 4 virtual NICs in Workstation 5.x - but realize that you can only have 6 virtual PCI devices - video, scsi controller, network, audio - are all PCI devices.

Workstation 6 supports up to 10 virtual NICs in a guest.

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jaymemaurice
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hmmm, I stripped my VM to 3 nics and an IDE HD - still wont let me add with the wizzard. The add hardware wizzard reports the maximum number of nics has been created.

I went into the vmx file and noticed the scsi0.present = "TRUE" and changed it to false... I am now going to change the vmx file and see if it will let me add another nic. Either way I probably shouldn't have to edit the VMX file for this... should I? Is there a KB entry on the max amount of PCI devices?

I will let you know how this goes.

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jaymemaurice
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

bang on... i set

scsi0.present="false"

as it wasnt used anyway and manually created the 4th nic by adding

ethernet3.present = "TRUE"

ethernet3.virtualDev = e1000

Now my VM has the 4 nics I need and all is well. Thanks.

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RDPetruska
Leadership
Leadership

Yes, you have to manually edit to use a 4th NIC - the GUI will only let you add 3.

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KevinG
Immortal
Immortal

Is there a KB entry on the max amount of PCI devices?

It's listed in the WS documentation under "Virtual Machine Specifications"

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