A network address translation (NAT) configuration sets up a virtual network that must use the TCP/IP protocol. The virtual machines configured for NAT are connected to the virtual network through a virtual Ethernet adapter or switch VMnet8, which is the default virtual network adapter for NAT. Like host-only networking, the host computer can connect to the virtual network, only NAT connects through the VMnet8 virtual network adapter while host-only networking uses the VMnet1 virtual network adapter.
If you want to connect to the Internet or other TCP/IP network using the host computer's dial-up networking connection and you are not able to give your virtual machine an IP address on the external network, this is often the easiest way to give your virtual machine access to that network.
With NAT, the virtual machine does not have its own IP address on the external network. Instead, a separate virtual network is set up on the host computer. The virtual machine gets an address on that network from the VMware DHCP server. The VMware NAT device passes network data between one or more virtual machines and the external network. It identifies incoming data packets intended for each virtual machine and sends them to the correct destination.
If you select NAT, the virtual machine can use many standard TCP/IP protocols to connect to other machines on the external network. For example, you can use HTTP to browse Web sites, FTP to transfer files and telnet to log in to other computers. However, computers on the external network cannot initiate connections to the virtual machine. That means that you cannot use the virtual machine as a Web server to send Web pages to computers on the external network.
To set up a virtual machine for NAT networking you need to follow these steps:
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