Specifications

CHAPTER 7 Networking
229
Components of the Virtual Network
The following items are components of a virtual network:
Virtual switch — Like a physical switch, a virtual switch lets you connect other
networking components together. Virtual switches are created as needed by the GSX
Server software, up to a total of ten switches on a Windows host or 100 switches on a
Linux host. You can connect one or more virtual machines to a switch.
A few of the switches and the networks associated with them are, by default, used for
special named configurations. The bridged network normally uses VMnet0. The host-
only network uses VMnet1 by default. And the NAT network uses VMnet8 by default.
The others available networks are simply named VMnet2, VMnet3, VMnet4, and so on.
You connect a virtual machine to a switch by selecting the virtual network adapter
you want to connect in the virtual machine settings editor, then configuring it to use
the desired virtual network.
Bridge — The bridge lets you connect your virtual machine to the LAN used by your
host computer. It connects the virtual network adapter in your virtual machine to the
physical Ethernet adapter in your host computer.
The bridge is installed during GSX Server installation (on a Linux host, you must
choose to make bridged networking available to your virtual machines). It is set up
automatically when you create a new virtual machine using bridged networking.
Additional virtual bridges can be set up for use in custom configurations that require
connections to more than one physical Ethernet adapter on the host computer.
Host virtual adapter — The host virtual adapter is a virtual Ethernet adapter that
appears to your host operating system as a VMware virtual Ethernet adapter on a
Windows host and as a host-only interface on a Linux host. It allows you to
communicate between your host computer and the virtual machines on that host
computer. The host virtual adapter is used in host-only and NAT configurations.
The host virtual adapter is not connected to any external network unless you set up
special software on the host computer — a proxy server, for example — to connect
the host-only adapter to the physical network adapter.
The software that creates the host virtual adapter is installed when you install GSX
Server (on a Linux host, you must choose to make host-only networking available to
your virtual machines). A host virtual adapter is then created automatically when you
boot the host computer.
You can set up additional host virtual adapters as needed.