Hello Tech-enthusiasts. My name is Vinay Sarva and I hope you are getting some insights from my blogs. Today, I am Introducing a topic on Virtual Networking that could be quite useful for the IT Operation Professionals who are building up a Virtual Infrastructure in their Test/Prod Environment. By the end of this blog, you will be able to understand which Network type is best suitable for your environment to work with.

Virtualization platforms are provided by three types of Networks. They are Bridged Network, NAT, and Host-Only Network.

When setting up a Virtual Infrastructure Setup we have the option to have one or more Network Interface Cards. The virtual NICs will have a connection between the VM and its host. The NICs can have all three possible connection types.

We will understand one by one about their main features.

1.Bridged Network -

In the Bridged Network type, the External physical network will be directly connected to Host Network.

All the Virtual machines will be residing in Bridged Network will not have any connection with the Host Network. Therefore, another external network would be required to access the internet.

When set to the bridge, the VM gets its IP address and appears to be a completely distinct machine on the network even though its traffic passes through the host adapter. VirtualBox uses a device driver on your base system that filters data from your physical network adapter. This driver is, therefore, called a -net filter driver. This allows VirtualBox to intercept data from the physical network and inject data into it, effectively creating a new network interface in software. This allows you to set up routing or bridging between the guest and the rest of your network.

2.NAT (Network Address Translation) –


NAT is the most used Network type because using this type of Network External Network can have direct contact with the Host network and with the Virtual machines to access the Internet.

When set to NAT, the host system acts as a router and Incoming traffic are routed to the VM through the host system.

3.HOST ONLY Network –


Host-Only is a private network where Virtual machines will have contact only with the Host System and not with the External Network. But the Host System can have contact with the External Network.

When set to host only, Virtual machines inside the host can only direct contact with each other. The VMs exists only on the private network and are visible to other VMs on the same host and to the host machine itself, but the connection is not available from the VMs to external networks via the host adapter.