With Fusion Pro, you can add additional NAT configurations for scenarios in which a virtual machine shares the IP address and MAC address of your Mac.

By default, Fusion provides one Share with my Mac configuration that uses NAT. You can add additional NAT configurations to perform actions such as turning off the DHCP service or using a non-default subnet IP or subnet mask.

Prerequisites

  • Verify that you have a Fusion Pro license.
  • Verify that you know the administrator password.

Procedure

  1. Select VMware Fusion > Preferences and click Network.
  2. Click the lock icon, enter the administrator password, and click OK.
  3. Click the plus sign (+) under the list of networks.
  4. (Optional) If you want to rename a virtual network, double-click the name, enter a new name, and press the Return key.
  5. Allow virtual machines on the network to use NAT to connect to external networks.
    1. Select Allow virtual machines on this network to connect to external networks (using NAT).
      Note: On Big Sur hosts, the virtual machine gets IPv6 addresses if the host has IPv6 configured. If you use Fusion 12.1.2 or an earlier version with a Mac OS Big Sur host configured with IPv6, skip step 5.b.
    2. (Optional) Select the Enable IPv6 check box.
    3. (Optional) Use the appropriate option to configure the IPv6 Prefix text box.
      Option Description
      Manual Enter the IPv6 prefix in the text box.
      Automatic Leave the text box blank to allow an IPv6 prefix to generate automatically.
    4. (Optional) Click the plus sign (+) under the Port Forwarding section for each port-forwarding configuration you want to add.
    5. (Optional) For each port-forwarding configuration you add, provide the following information and click OK.
      Host port A port number available on the Mac host. Verify that the port does not conflict with ports used by existing port forwarding entries.
      Type The appropriate protocol to use.
      Virtual Machine IP address The IP address of the virtual machine to which you want to forward the incoming requests.
      Virtual Machine Port

      The port number to use for requests on the specified virtual machine. The port might be the standard port, such as 80 for HTTP, or a nonstandard port if software running in the virtual machine is configured to accept requests on a nonstandard port.

      A port-forwarding configuration appears in the list of networks.
  6. (Optional) To connect the host system to this private network, select Connect the host Mac to this network.
    Note: The Connect the host Mac to this network check box is not available for Fusion 12.1.2 and earlier on MacOS Big Sur hosts.
  7. (Optional) If you enabled IPv6 and want the Mac host to use IPv6 to communicate with virtual machines, manually add an IPv6 address to the NAT virtual network interface.
    Note: On Mac systems, the NAT virtual network interface does not automatically accept IPv6 address assignments.
    1. Open a terminal window on your Mac.
    2. Enter a command such as the following. 
      sudo ifconfig VirtualNetworkInterfaceName inet6 IPv6Prefix::1 up
      Where VirtualNetworkInterfaceName is a placeholder for the name of the virtual network interface, such as vmnet2, and IPv6Prefix::1 is a placeholder for the IPv6 prefix, which has a format such as xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx::1.
  8. (Optional) To use a local DHCP service to distribute IP addresses to virtual machines on the network, select Provide addresses on this network via DHCP.
    Note: The DHCP check box is not available for Fusion 12.1.2 and earlier on MacOS Big Sur hosts.
  9. (Optional) To change the subnet IP address or subnet mask, modify the addresses in the Subnet IP and Subnet Mask text boxes.
  10. (Optional) To configure jumbo frame, select Custom from the MTU drop-down menu and enter a value between 72 bytes and 9194 bytes in the text box.
    Note: The jumbo frame feature is not available for Fusion 12.1.2 and earlier on MacOS Big Sur hosts.
  11. Click Apply.

Results

The network that you configured is now available to the virtual network adapters associated with virtual machines on your Mac.