I’m a heavy user of VMware Fusion, especially now that I have a MacBook Pro Retina with 16 GB of RAM and enough horsepower to power more than one virtual machine. For a recent project, I found Fusion’s lack of native ability to manage virtual networks more than frustrating, so I turned to Nicholas Weaver’s UBER Network Fuser tool to help me out. With this tool, I was able to easily accomplish my goal, which was to disable the DHCP server on vmnet8 in Fusion, the NAT network. For my project, I needed to stand up a Windows-based DHCP server on that network and I didn’t want Fusion getting in the way. Although I could have manually modified the individual network configuration files in Fusion, Weaver’s tool makes like much easier and it also adds to Fusion the ability to create new virtual networks.
Below, you see the Information screen in the tool. Notice that I’ve stopped Fusion so that configuration changes can be made,
The Networks tab is where the real action happens. Here, you can configure the existing default networks, such as changing the network address, disabling DHCP or NAT and more, or you can choose to create additional virtual networks. This is really handy if you need to do isolated testing of multiple services.
If you’re a Fusion user, UBER Network Fuser is one tool you shouldn’t be without.