Networking components in Proxmox

We will now look at the components used in Proxmox that make the virtual network possible within the Proxmox virtual environment.

Virtual Network Interface Card (vNIC)

Virtual Network Interface Card (vNIC) is a software-defined representation of a Media Access Control (MAC) interface of physical network interfaces. It is basically a virtual network card for a virtual machine. Multiple vNICs can share a physical network interface of a host node. In a way, networking starts with vNIC when a virtual machine sends data to reach other virtual machines or networking devices within a virtual environment or physical environment. In the following diagram, the virtual machine has two virtual network interfaces assigned with an Intel e1000 driver. Both of them are configured with bridge vmbr601.

Intel e1000 is a Linux kernel driver to virtualize Intel architecture-based virtual network interfaces. This is the default vNIC for new virtual machines in Proxmox since it is...