Which Networking Mode to choose for your VM?

This article assumes you are using VMware Workstation or VMware Player.

Whenever you want to install or deploy a VM, it is important to answer the question of "Which networking mode should I use for this VM? Should it be a bridge, NAT or host-only?"

And the answer to this question – like many other good questions – depends on what you want to achieve. Should your VM interact with the host? Should it be able to connect to the internet? Should it be able to talk to other VMs in my host? If so, what kind of network configuration the other VMs should have?

So, for working through this every time, I thought I'll create a reference table that shows the behavior of VMs in these three different networking modes:

For verifying this table, I just fired up a couple of VMs, adjusted their network settings and did a series of ping tests to confirm.

And finally, based on this exercise I also wanted to add a few more observations:

1. The host OS can always interact with your VM irrespective of the VM's Network Configuration.
   
2. When you use "Bridged Mode" for your VM the IP address of the VM will be in the same subnet as the host.
   
3. When you use "NAT mode" for your VM, the IP address of the VM will be in the 192.168.74.0/24 subnet.
   
4. When you use "Host-only mode" for your VM, the IP address of the VM will be in the 192.168.233.0/24 subnet.
   
5. In "Host-only mode" your VM can ONLY interact with other VMs that are in "Host-only mode". They cannot interact with your host.