User`s guide

Working With Virtual Machines 109
Configuring Network in Virtual
Machines
Parallels Desktop allows you to use three types of networking in your virtual machines:
 Shared Networking (p. 109). This ty
pe of networking allows the virtual machine to use the
current network connections of the physical computer.
 Bridged Ethernet (p. 111). This ty
pe of networking allows the virtual machine to use one of
the physical computer network adapters. This makes it appear as a separate computer on the
network to which the physical computer belongs.
 Host-only networking (p. 112). This type of networking allows the virtual
machine to access
only the physical computer and other virtual machines residing on it.
By default, the virtual machine uses Shared Networking because configuring it requires minimal
effort from the users. The Bridged Ethernet networking mode is more complex and you may
need to contact your system administrator to set it up properly.
Detailed information on these types of networking and the way to configure them is provided in
the following subsections.
Shared Networking
By default, all newly created virtual machines are set to work in the Shared Networking mode.
In this mode, your virtual machine can access other computers on your local network and the
Internet by using the IP address of the physical computer. The virtual machine itself does not
have its own IP address on the network. This mode allows you to specify port forwarding rules
(p. 56) for the virtual machines running on your Mac, which can be especially useful when
running HTT
P, FTP, or other types of servers in virtual machines.