Useful Networking Techniques

This is a really useful technique that I use all the time.

I have only tried this on my personal machine that runs Ubuntu 10.04 as the host system, I will give it a go on Win 7 when I get a chance.

I often connect my VM using a bridged connection through eth0 (wired connection), and connect my host machine to the internet through a separate wireless connection. This is super useful when I need to be connected to one network but also need to look up documentation on the net.

Or of course I want to access two networks on two different VM's but don't necessarily want those VM's to be aware of the other network.

To do this simply connect the host to the wired network, I usually set the network adapter on the VM to bridged so it gets its own IP address, once the VM can ping something in the wired network simply disconnect the host machine by opening the network settings and selecting disconnect. I always go and re-ping the thing I just pinged, must be out of some slight OCD but it always works. So at this point the only thing aware of the wired network is the VM connected to it.

I will then re-enable the wireless, access the internet as usual.

I find this really useful, YMMV, but it maybe useful to you also.