Part 2 – VMware vSphere 8 Nested Home Lab – Defining the VMware Workstation Virtual Network Zones

In this second part of the series I will explain how to create the different network zones that we discussed in Part 1 using the VMware Workstation Virtual Network Editor.

Interface	IP Range	Netmask	Gateway	VMware VMNet
WAN	192.168.1.0	255.255.255.0	192.168.1.1	Bridged
LAN	10.100.1.0	255.255.255.0	10.100.1.11	VMNet1
Management, vMotion, FT	10.100.1.0	255.255.255.0	10.100.1.11	VMNet1
Storage iSCSI / NFS	10.100.2.0	255.255.255.0	10.100.2.11	VMNet2
WEB / DMZ	10.100.3.0	255.255.255.0	10.100.3.11	VMNet3
APP / DB Servers	10.100.4.0	255.255.255.0	10.100.4.11	VMNet4
Clients	10.100.5.0	255.255.255.0	10.100.5.11	VMNet5

VMware Home Lab IP Address Schema

Open VMware Workstation. Go to Edit menu and select Virtual Network Editor

In the Virtual Network Editor window that pops up click Change Settings.

Click Yes on the windows administrative pop up that may follow.

When you install VMware workstation below three types of virtual networks are created by default.

• Bridged – When you install Workstation Pro on a Windows or Linux host system, a bridged network (VMnet0) is set up for you. Bridged networking connects a virtual machine to an external physical network by using the network adapter on the host system. If the host system is on a network, bridged networking is often the easiest way to give the virtual machine access to that network.
• Host-only – When you install Workstation Pro on a Windows or Linux host system, a host-only network (VMnet1) is set up for you. Host-only networking is useful if you need to set up an isolated virtual network. In a host-only network, the virtual machine and the host virtual network adapter are connected to a private Ethernet network. The network is completely contained within the host system.
• NAT – When you install Workstation Pro on a Windows or Linux host system, a NAT network (VMnet8) is set up for you. When you use the New Virtual Machine wizard to create a typical virtual machine, the wizard configures the virtual machine to use the default NAT network. With NAT, a virtual machine does not have its own IP address on the external network. Instead, a separate private network is set up on the host system. In the default configuration, virtual machines get an address on this private network from the virtual DHCP server.

We will be using the host-only virtual network while defining the internal network zone such as MGMT/vMotion/FT, iSCSI, Server/ DMZ, APP/DB and Client. To create these we will start with deleting the default host-only network VMnet1 and then we will create all the required networks.

In the VMware Workstation Virtual Network Editor, select the network VMnet1 and click Remove Network.

Now let us start creating the new host-only networks as per our virtual lab Network Topology. In the VMware Workstation Virtual Network Editor, click on Add Network.

Leave the default selection as VMnet1 and click OK.

For VMnet1, remove the check against the option Use local DHCP service to distribute IP addresses to VMs  and enter 10.100.1.0 against Subnet IP in order to define the MGMT network.

Repeat the above steps to add remaining networks. The final result should look like below. Once done click on OK to save the changes.