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I am running VMware Workstation 15 on a 64 bit Windows 10 machine. Recently I wanted to do an experiment to share my wifi via Virtual Machine (i.e. installing some app inside the virtual machine like MyPublicWifi or so).

What I did was set the VM Networking to bridged mode. I am on a Wifi which is provided to me via a login password. I switched on my Windows 10 Virtual machine and when the machine powered on fully I notice that internet connectivity does not exist on host machine as well. I am though connected to the Wifi Network but when I power on the Virtual machine I can not connect to internet even on host machine. This is strange for me. I am sharing a couple of screenshots for same. snap1 snap2 snap3 network properties login page
Ipconfig on host machine ipconfig on host machine ipconfig on guest VM ipconfig on Virtual machine. If I enabled NAT instead of Bridged Networking for Virtual Machine then every thing is working fine. So what could be the problem in my configurations?

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I am basically still trying many things at my end hence have not accepted answer as I am not convinced enough. In case any one comes here in future and wants to add an answer should add. I will try.

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You can't bridge to a WiFi client connection to an access point. If you could, we wouldn't need WDS.

The problem is that the WiFi specification prohibits an access point from putting traffic on the air unless that traffic is bound for one of its clients. Either the VM can be the client or the machine can be the client. But they can't both be because there's only one client connection to the access point.

This rule is a relic of times long ago when WiFi was very slow (11 Mbps or less) and just bridging traffic to the WiFi would have lead to horrible congestion. Unfortunately, WiFi is just enough like Ethernet to make people think it's the same, but it's not. You can't bridge to a client connection.

You could use a wired connection. You could use some form of NAT (it doesn't have to be IP NAT, MAC NAT will usually mostly work). You could use routing instead of bridging.

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  • I tried to find some helpful links, but I wasn't able to. The short answer is that bridging to a client WiFi connection will never be reliable (because a client connection to an access point only supports a single hardware client device using that connection) and you should use a wired connection, NAT or routing instead.
    – David Schwartz
    Commented Oct 24, 2019 at 8:45
  • Please see an answer here communities.vmware.com/message/2895835#2895835 and let me know what is your view on this.
    – political science
    Commented Nov 6, 2019 at 10:42
  • @politicalscience I suspect it's a way to get the host to claim the VM's MAC address as one of its own .
    – David Schwartz
    Commented Nov 18, 2019 at 15:27
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Bridging to Wi-Fi works, as long as the security is not WPA2 Enterprise. All other forms of Wi-Fi security (open/portal/WEP/WPA2-PSK) should work. Although the MAC address presented on the Wi-Fi network will be the physical one from your host. Your VM's will get an IP address from the physical Wi-Fi network.

Regards

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  • yes you are correct this is the answer which I was expecting some how I was in a lot of problems so could not try a lot of things because in my institute we have had captive portal logins. I had a lot of assignments ,classes,tutorials presentations every thing at the same time. Due to which I could not try a lot of things but I was facing internet errors in that environment.Some how I came home and here on my ADSL also I faced a lot of problems in giving internet to Virtual machines.It turned out DNS resolution was not happening properly. If you are interested be hooked here I will post
    – political science
    Commented Dec 13, 2019 at 20:49
  • updates to things which I try when I go back to my institute here. The errors and resolutions which I did at my home regarding internet in virtual machines are here virtual machines not having internet connectivity superuser.com/questions/1507968/… nslookup failures serverfault.com/questions/994722/… I will come back to this original question after a month when I reach back in my institute. If you have any suggestions to try in my environment for original quest
    – political science
    Commented Dec 13, 2019 at 20:50
  • question please post here it will help others also. I will update question with screenshots and all steps when ever I get time currently my email is 13 Gb full so I am working on it for past 1 week some how facing lot of problems once I come out of all that I will come back to this thread.unix.stackexchange.com/questions/557102/…
    – political science
    Commented Dec 13, 2019 at 20:52

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