Creating an internal network using VMware Workstation

In this post I will show you simple steps required to create your own internal network infrastructure using vmware workstation. This can be useful in case you want to practice some networking stuff and you are out of physical computers so reducing the complexity you can utilize the features provided by vmware for the same.

Assuming that you have successfully installed vmware workstation in your machine. Create virtual machines as per your requirement.
In the left hand panel of vmware workstation you can see the list of installed vms. Now before starting your own internal network you need to create one range of network which will be used by all the vms locally independent of your main network.

Follow the screenshots as shown below

Click on Edit from the Top Panel and select Virtual Network Editor

Click on Add Network

Select any of the network port you want to add from the drop down menu

Make sure the settings are as shown in the below screenshot. You can change the IP Address range as per your requirement



Now change the Network Adapter in the required vms whom you want to be in the same Internal Network

Follow the same steps for all those vm you want to add in the internal network.

Once done check the IP configuration as you can see in my case

# ifconfig
eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0C:29:05:61:5E
          inet addr:192.168.130.128  Bcast:192.168.130.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::20c:29ff:fe05:615e/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:686 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:337 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:84990 (82.9 KiB)  TX bytes:50044 (48.8 KiB)
          Interrupt:19 Base address:0x2080
lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:16 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:16 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:1127 (1.1 KiB)  TX bytes:1127 (1.1 KiB)

# ping 192.168.130.1
PING 192.168.130.1 (192.168.130.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.130.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=128 time=2.57 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.130.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=128 time=0.242 ms
^C
--- 192.168.130.1 ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 1337ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.242/1.408/2.574/1.166 ms