ThorneLabs

Manually Add and Remove VMware Fusion Virtual Adapters

• Updated May 13, 2017


VMware Fusion exposes command line options that make it easy to add or remove virtual adapters manually.

In this post, I will be adding and removing virtual adapter vmnet7. A fresh install of VMware Fusion does not include this virtual adapter.

Manually Add VMware Fusion Virtual Adapter

The following commands will create vmnet7, a VMware Fusion host only virtual adapter assigned to network 192.168.240.0/24:

sudo /Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmnet-cfgcli vnetcfgadd VNET_7_DHCP no
sudo /Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmnet-cfgcli vnetcfgadd VNET_7_HOSTONLY_SUBNET 192.168.240.0
sudo /Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmnet-cfgcli vnetcfgadd VNET_7_HOSTONLY_NETMASK 255.255.255.0
sudo /Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmnet-cfgcli vnetcfgadd VNET_7_VIRTUAL_ADAPTER yes

Restart VMware Fusion networking to apply the changes:

sudo /Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmnet-cli --configure
sudo /Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmnet-cli --stop
sudo /Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmnet-cli --start

Perhaps you also want that network to route out to the internet via NAT. No problem, simply run the following command or include it with the other commands above:

sudo /Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmnet-cfgcli vnetcfgadd VNET_7_NAT yes

Once again, to apply the change, restart VMware Fusion networking with the three vmnet-cli commands above.

The vmnet-cfgcli command will modify entries in /Library/Preferences/VMware\ Fusion/networking. This file can also be edited by hand and any changes can be applied by restarting VMware Fusion networking with the three vmnet-cli commands above.

Manually Remove VMware Fusion Virtual Adapter

To remove the vmnet7 VMware Fusion virtual adapter, you can edit /Library/Preferences/VMware\ Fusion/networking, remove all lines containing VNET_7, and restart VMware Fusion networking, or you can use the following commands and then restart VMware Fusion networking:

sudo /Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmnet-cfgcli vnetcfgremove VNET_7_DHCP
sudo /Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmnet-cfgcli vnetcfgremove VNET_7_HOSTONLY_SUBNET
sudo /Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmnet-cfgcli vnetcfgremove VNET_7_HOSTONLY_NETMASK
sudo /Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmnet-cfgcli vnetcfgremove VNET_7_VIRTUAL_ADAPTER

If you configured vmnet7 to use NAT, also run the following command and then restart VMware Fusion networking:

sudo /Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmnet-cfgcli vnetcfgremove VNET_7_NAT

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